America’s third largest wireless company announced on Friday a fresh round of firings that will cost the company $160 million in severance related expenses.
The job firings come as President Barack Obama touted his economic policies last week in a last ditch effort to spare Democrats looming losses in the upcoming midterm elections.
Sprint’s latest round of layoffs come on the heels of its March downsizing which included the shuttering of 55 stores and the elimination of 330 workers’ jobs. The wireless company’s newest layoffs are expected to wrap up by the end of October.
“We’re still working through the details so exact numbers and locations are not available at this time,” a Sprint spokesperson told the Associated Press.
On Thursday, Obama told an audience at Northwestern University that, “By every economic measure, we are better off now than when I took office.”
However, during a Sunday broadcast of NBC’s Meet the Press, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell blasted Obama’s economic record and the administration’s Friday jobs report.
“All the reporting on the jobs data from Friday reported that the participation rate is at historic lows, decade lows. 59% are involved in the labor force,” said Mitchell. That’s just not a sustainable recovery. We have two Americas. We really do.”
Nearly one in four Americans in their prime working years (ages 25 to 54) no longer work.