Mass layoffs under way at Sprint

A good rule of thumb: When the new boss starts talking about making the company more efficient, he or she usually means that jobs aren’t too safe.

New Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure wasn’t on the job for more than a day before he started talking about “becoming extremely cost efficient” in the short term at the Overland Park telecommunications company. One of the only ways to become efficient quickly is cutting personnel.

A regulatory filing out today shows that Claure wasn’t bluffing. Sprint said in a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it planned to spend $160 million in costs related to cutting workers in the second quarter of its fiscal year. The bloodletting started Tuesday and is expected to continue until October 31.

The filing doesn’t say how many people will receive pink slips or which locations will sustain the brunt of the layoffs. Sprint says it’s carrying out the staff reductions to become more efficient and reduce costs, a seemingly never-ending process for the company.