Sprint has promised to create or repatriate 5,000 American jobs over the course of 2017. One of the United States’ carriers made the announcement in a form of a press release explaining that the American jobs would be across the company, including the Sales and Customer Care divisions. The carrier will start negotiations with key important business partners, state and city departments in order to “determine the right locations” for the new jobs. Sprint’s promise runs through the whole of 2017 and the company has promised to provide additional details as soon as it is able to. Sprint’s Chief Executive Officer, Marcelo Claure, explained: “We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans.” Sprint’s announcement is good news for the American market and may help persuade customers to join the carrier as it is seen to be supporting the domestic workforce. Claure also said that “[Sprint] are excited to work with President-Elect Trump and his Administration to do our part in order to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S.”
Sprint’s announcement follows what appears to be some political maneuvering earlier in December when President-elect, Donald Trump, and Sprint’s parent company, Softbank’s Chief Executive Officer, Masayoshi Son, made an announcement that Softbank were to invest $50 billion into the North American market. One of the rumors at the time was that Softbank were preparing to combine Sprint with T-Mobile US or at least to create an additional 50,000 North American jobs. Son explained that Softbank “would never do this” if President-elect Trump had not of been elected.
Sprint were relegated to America’s fourth largest carrier in late 2015 when T-Mobile US claimed higher subscriber numbers. However, Sprint has been working hard to both be competitive with T-Mobile US and the two larger carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The announcement about US jobs shows that Sprint is keen to explain to Americans that not only does it have a credible and competitive cellular network, built on a different blend of frequencies and spectrum as compared with its competitors, but that it is also supporting the local jobs market.