Sprint to offer employees buyout packages

Sprint Nextel Corp., reeling from the loss of 1.1 million contract customers last quarter, plans to cut costs by offering buyout packages to the phone company's workers.

Employees who take the package will get eight weeks of pay, plus an additional two weeks for every year they've been with the company, said spokesman James Fisher. Workers have until Dec. 3 to take the deal and will leave Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint in late January.

Sprint, the third-largest mobile-phone company, has lost money for the past four quarters as customers defect amid complaints of poor service and spotty network coverage. Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse, who took the reins in December, is stepping up efforts to cut expenses after losing a record number of subscribers last quarter.

``We have been working this year to control costs, and labor costs are one of our highest,'' Fisher said.

The buyout packages apply to all regions and the company doesn't have a set number of jobs to eliminate, Fisher said. Employees who deal with customers, such as those in stores and call centers, are exempt from the offer. Workers in human resources, communications and finance have received the deal, he said.

Sprint rose 37 cents, or 19 percent, to $2.32 at 12:39 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock had dropped 85 percent this year before today.

The decline in contract customers last quarter was the company's biggest drop since it merged with Nextel Communications Inc. in 2005. To cut costs, Hesse has also turned down heaters in offices, closed cafeterias and sent out letters asking employees to save money.