U.S. wireless carrier Sprint on Wednesday announced plans to add 5,000 jobs to its stateside workforce as part of a broader push from SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and President-elect Donald Trump to bring 50,000 jobs to the U.S. economy over the next four years.
“We are excited to work with President-elect Trump and his administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S.,” Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said in a statement. “We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans.”
According to a Wednesday press release, Sprint will “create or bring back” 5,000 jobs to the United States. The carrier in a Wednesday statement said the positions will cover a variety of functions across the company, including customer care, sales, and other areas. Though the locations for the jobs have yet to be determined, the release indicated Sprint is planning to strike up conversations “immediately” with business partners, states, and cities to find appropriate sites as soon as possible.
Sprint could not immediately be reached for comment on how the job additions would fit into its plan to cut nearly $2 billion from its operating costs – especially after the company as part of that initiative cut 2,500 jobs and closed six call centers back in January. It was not immediately clear whether the new jobs would be full-time or part-time positions or a mix of both.
Sprint plans to complete the additions by the end of its fiscal year 2017, which will close in March 2018.
The news comes three weeks after Trump announced Sprint parent company SoftBank is planning to invest $50 billion in the United States toward businesses and the creation of 50,000 jobs over the next four years. Sprint’s job additions will be part of that total but will be funded by Sprint rather than Softbank, representatives for the carrier told Bloomberg.
Trump reiterated Wednesday an additional 3,000 jobs or so will be added over the next four years by SoftBank-backed satellite startup OneWeb Ltd.
“Earlier this month I met with President-Elect Trump and shared my commitment to investing and creating jobs in the U.S. This is the first step in that commitment,” Son said in a statement when the OneWeb news was announced last week.
