The proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T would lead to the elimination of thousands of American jobs as the company works to lower its capital expenditures by $10 billion, according to a newly released study commissioned by Sprint.
The study directly refutes claims made by AT&T, based on a memorandum by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), that the merger would be a net job creator. The EPI analysis, Neumark notes, is groundless.
“EPI’s claim that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger would create jobs is completely unfounded. It ignores potential reductions in capital expenditures that T-Mobile would have undertaken. Indeed, AT&T has told the federal government and its investors that the merger would lead to reduced capital expenditures – which by EPI’s own logic would lead to fewer jobs. And AT&T has acknowledged there would be other job reductions resulting from the merger,” stated David Neumark, professor of Economics and director of the Center for Economics and Public Policy at the University of California at Irvine.
Assuming AT&T’s net capital investment falls by $5 billion, it would result in job destruction of 34,000 to 60,000 using EPI’s own analysis, Neumark concludes.
http://www.sprint.comhttp://newsroom.sprint.com/images/9004/ATT-T-Mobile-merger-jobs-study.pdf
