U.S. Cellular and T-Mobile have struck a deal to keep a majority of the thousands of employees that are about to be let go as Chicago-based U.S. Cellular prepares to sell its wireless business to its Bellevue, Washington-based competitor.
According to a national Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter filed by U.S. Cellular this week, the company is planning to lay off 4,100 employees across California, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington state, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
The layoffs come after U.S. Cellular agreed last year to sell its wireless operations and 30% of its spectrum portfolio to T-Mobile in a deal valued at $4.4 billion. Pending regulatory approval, U.S. Cellular said it expects the sale to T-Mobile to be completed by mid-2025.
Layoffs are expected to begin June 2, the company stated in the WARN notice. As part of the deal, however, T-Mobile is committed to retaining more than half of the 4,100 U.S. Cellular employees impacted by the cuts. That includes employees in stores throughout the country, in the Chicago headquarters and in other corporate offices, including a smaller office in Schaumburg, Illinois, a U.S. Cellular spokesman told CoStar News.
Affected employees will be given the opportunity to work for T-Mobile “at a salary or wage rate and with benefits, that when taken as a whole, are no less favorable to these employees current salary or wage rate and benefits,” U.S. Cellular said in the notice.
Despite the promise to keep the majority of the 4,100 employees, the layoffs are expected to leave a big hole in the three-tower U.S. Cellular Plaza office complex near Chicago's O’Hare International Airport.
U.S. Cellular’s headquarters has long been in the 11-story tower at 8410 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. in Chicago. The entire 212,428-square-foot building is now being marketed for lease, with the space available for occupancy in November, according to CoStar data.
The office complex is owned by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, with Charlotte, North Carolina-based FCA Partners as the pension fund’s asset manager. They did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CoStar News on Tuesday.
The company’s headquarters lease is set to expire later this year. U.S. Cellular adopted a hybrid work model in recent years, the spokesperson confirmed. U.S. Cellular’s real estate team is looking for new office space in the Chicago area as the headquarters lease expires, the spokesperson said.
“We will continue to have an office in Chicago,” the spokesman for U.S. Cellular said.