T-Mobile is undergoing a pivotal transformation as it seeks to prevent its phone customers from flocking to competitors following major pricing and phone plan changes. 

After raising rates for some of its older phone plans in 2024, T-Mobile rolled out another price increase for those plans in April last year, which frustrated many customers. It also raised its Regulatory Programs & Telco Recovery fee, which customers pay for in their monthly bills. 

The phone carrier later removed taxes and fees from its phone plan pricing and moved customers to newer plans without their permission. 

Shortly after these changes, T-Mobile revealed in its third-quarter earnings report for 2025 that its postpaid phone churn (the number of customers who canceled their phone service) ticked up by 3 basis points year over year.

The customer losses come after a survey from WhistleOut last year found that many consumers nationwide are planning to switch phone carriers as they battle price hikes. Due to this trend, T-Mobile risks losing 75.9 million customers because of high mobile plan pricing. 

The company later named Srini Gopalan as its new CEO in September, and he has since vowed to make the company digital-first, making customers more reliant on the T-Life app to handle tasks. This sparked concerns among some employees that this initiative would result in job cuts. 

Shortly before officially stepping into the role as CEO on Nov. 1, he doubled down on his initiative to digitally transform the company. 

“Digital acquisition and moving our customers to digital is fundamentally going after customer pain points and going after the way we’ve always done things in this industry, changing and radically relooking at that process, and just making it simpler to do the one thing you can’t do on your wireless, which is buy wireless,” said Gopalan during an earnings call in October. 

T-Mobile’s new CEO promises to make the company digital-first.

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T-Mobile employees face a tough new reality 

Those concerns from employees were realized in December, when T-Mobile reportedly laid off an unknown number of account executives and sales managers. Then, between Jan. 6 and Jan. 20, the phone carrier cut jobs in several other departments, including end-user support, consumer and retail, and product.

In response to these layoffs, T-Mobile said in a statement to TheStreet last month that while it is continuing to hire, it is making “some changes” to ensure it has “the right focus, structure and momentum” as it aims to focus more on customers and “respond even faster to a dynamic market.”

Now it appears T-Mobile is continuing to cut jobs. In a WARN notice submitted to the Washington Employment Security Department on Jan. 30, T-Mobile unveiled that it laid off 393 employees at various worksite locations in Washington state.

Related: T-Mobile quietly makes cold move as loyal customers leave

“These facilities are not being closed,” said T-Mobile in the notice. “The layoffs are not due to relocation or contracting out employer operations or employee positions, but it is possible that some work currently done by these employees may at some point be done by others. While employees are encouraged to pursue open T-Mobile positions, these layoffs are expected to be permanent.”

Some of the impacted employees were managers, analysts, directors, senior account executives, and engineers. 

In the notice, T-Mobile said the layoffs were due to “changing business needs.” The employees will be officially let go on April 2 and have already received a 60-day notice. 

T-Mobile joins a growing list of companies cutting jobs

T-Mobile’s decision to cut more jobs follows its peers in the tech industry that also recently reduced their workforces. 

In November, Verizon laid off a whopping 13,000 employees shortly after new CEO Dan Schulman, former PayPal CEO, took over. 

Also, a few weeks ago, Amazon announced 16,000 layoffs, a move it says will help it “strengthen” its organization. Meta also laid off more than 1,000 employees in its Reality Labs division last month, amid low profits from its Metaverse business. 

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The layoffs this year come after the U.S. unemployment rate reached 4.4% in December, up from 4.1% in December 2024, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Despite recent layoff announcements, Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, said in a statement to the Society for Human Resource Management that she expects hiring to increase this year. 

“Instead of the dramatic surge seen during the post-pandemic hiring boom — which led to subsequent years of headcount reductions — this year we’ll likely see a more gradual pickup in hiring activity,” said Bachaud. 

“The low-hire, low-fire environment that defined much of 2025 will persist into early 2026, but with a crucial difference,” she added. “While demand will pick up gradually, it will soon run headfirst into a wall of constrained labor supply.”

Roughly six in 10 U.S. companies plan to fire employees this year, while nine in 10 plan to hire, a recent survey from Resume.org found. 

How U.S. companies are preparing for layoffs in 2026:

  • About 55% of U.S. companies plan layoffs in 2026. 
  • Nearly half (48%) expect to announce job cuts in the first quarter of this year.
  • Additionally, 44% of companies cite artificial intelligence as the main driver of layoffs, with 42% blaming reorganization and 39% pointing to budget issues.
  • However, 92% of companies plan to hire this year, with 86% hiring in the first quarter.
    Source: Resume.org

Kara Dennison, head of career advising at Resume.org, said in the report that many industries are undergoing “workforce rebalancing,” where companies are cutting jobs that “no longer align with near-term priorities” as they hire in areas “tied to revenue, transformation, and efficiency.”

She also said that many companies are using AI as an excuse for layoffs because it sounds more strategic than admitting they are facing problems internally. 

“AI has become an explanation because it sounds strategic, forward-looking, and inevitable,” said Dennison. “AI suggests progress rather than problems. Saying roles are being affected by AI signals innovation and modernization, while acknowledging financial strain can raise concerns among investors, employees, and customers.”

Related: Meta makes drastic workforce decision after $73 billion in losses