More job cuts in telecoms, and it’s only the second week of January. Network vendor Ericsson is to axe 1,600 staff in Sweden, as widely reported. Network operator Telia will cut 600 in Sweden and Finland. These grim new-year tidings follow an annus horribilis for the whole sector in terms of HR shrinkage. Verizon announced 13,000 cuts in November, upwards of 13 percent of its workforce, in the costliest axe-wielding in its history. Telefónica slashed 6,000 across seven subsidiaries the same month, including over 3,000 in its home market.
Everyone is at it. Nokia cut 700 in Europe before Christmas, even as it pumped $4 billion into the US – as the latest round in a multi-year exercise to lash 14,000 (by 2026). Ericsson has been chipping away, all through: 1,400 in 2023, 1,200 in 2024, on top of the new reductions, plus hundred-numbers in between; Reuters reckons it had 90,000 staff, down from 100,000 three years ago. There are plenty of others, too: BT (5,000 jobs), Deutsche Telekom (2,700 jobs), and Elisa (350 jobs) all slimmed down in 2025. It has been building; 2024 wasn’t much better.
Across the industry, tens of thousands of jobs have just vanished – increasingly as double-digit percentages of regional workforces. The industry is not just trimming any more, but slashing wildly – even amid other mergers, consolidation, outsourcing, and franchising initiatives. Generational infrastructure investments have plateaued, service returns have failed to materialise, and the whole sector, like every sector, is trying to reinvent itself. There’s something to say about AI, of course, but you know it already and we’re out of time…
PS: While the industry maps the long road to 6G, Wi-Fi is taking on a central role in the connectivity stack, driven by the rollout of Wi-Fi 7, new work on Wi-Fi 8, the release of 6 GHz spectrum, AI-based optimization, and developing enterprise deployments. Join our Wi-Fi Forum next week (January 20) to explore how Wi-Fi is filling the gap left by cellular networks – as a bridge between 5G and 6G – and how viable use cases and monetization models are beginning to emerge.
PPS: If you happen to be in Hawaii next week for PTC’26 (January 18-21), look me up – I’ll likely be between the Hilton Hub and the Great Lawn, with a lei of flowers around my neck. Maybe see you there.
James Blackman
Editor
RCR Wireless News
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