By Bill Raack, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Telecommunications firm AT&T says it will lay off more than one hundred workers from its call center in downtown St. Louis.
A spokesman for AT&T says the layoffs are due to automation and other technical improvements that reduce the need for manual labor.
Kerry Hibbs says the cutbacks are part of an overall restructuring that will result in about 3,500 employees nationwide losing their jobs. Following the layoffs, AT&T says that 500 workers will remain at the downtown St. Louis location.
The Communications Workers of America labor union, which represents the AT&T employees who will lose their jobs, says the company is hiring other call center workers in Florida for less money and fewer benefits. AT&T says those hires are just temporary.