PORTLAND — CenturyLink, Oregon’s largest phone company, plans to lay off as many as 3,500 workers nationwide by the middle of December.
“We are not focusing on a specific group of employees or states. We are making adjustments to meet the needs of the business,” CenturyLink spokesman Mark Molzen wrote in an emailed statement. He said the number of layoffs will depend on the number of employees who take buyouts.
“Most of these changes are expected to be fully implemented by December 16, 2016, although there may be exceptions due to the needs of the business.”
Tech industry publication CRN reported the pending job cuts last week, citing a memo to employees indicating Louisiana-based CenturyLink plans to eliminate 8 percent of its work force due to declining revenue from its landline phone business.
CenturyLink’s predecessor, Qwest Communications, had nearly 1 million phone lines in Oregon in 2006; by last year, the number of CenturyLink lines had fallen to just 340,000, according to data compiled by the Oregon Public Utility Commission.
With its phone business fading away, CenturyLink is working to grow its high-speed internet service and an accompanying cable TV service, called Prism. It’s installing fiber-optic lines in parts of Portland and Vancouver to compete with the region’s established cable company, Comcast.
In Oregon, CenturyLink employs about 200 members of the Communications Workers of America, according to Jeanette Turner, president of the union’s Oregon chapter. She said the union doesn’t have a clear sense of what the pending job cuts mean locally.
“At this time we don’t have definitive answers to provide,” Turner said.
