Cingular To Cut Jobs By 10%

The CEO of Cingular acknowledged earlier this week that it expects to cut up to 10 percent of its 68,000-person workforce in the next year and a half.

Many of the cuts are related to reducing redundancy caused by Cingular's recent acquisition of AT&T Wireless, which made it the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., CEO Stan Sigman told The Associated Press. He said many of the cuts, which aren't expected to start until January, will come from administrative positions while relatively few will be from customer service, he told the AP in an interview.

"There will be people that will be affected by this, absolutely," Sigman was quoted as saying. "If you go to Redmond, Wash., where AT&T Wireless is based, there's anxiety there about how this is going to affect them and what is the impact on them. I've made a commitment that there will not be any forced layoffs until the first of the year."

Cingular is co-owned by SBC Communications and BellSouth. Following the merger with AT&T Wireless, it now has more than 47 million subscribers.