4% of AT&T; Employees Accept Buyout Offer

One day before AT&T; Corp.’s buyout offer to 72,000 supervisory employees was set to expire, the telecommunications company said 2,900 workers had accepted the severance package.

While the response appeared meager, AT&T; said the 4% acceptance rate was in line with initial expectations and that another 700 managers might sign on by today. Additional workers will be laid off beginning in January to meet the company’s unspecified job-reduction goals.

“We could get to 5% or better, given the human nature factor of filing at the last possible minute,” AT&T; spokesman Burke Stinson said Thursday.

The incentive package was announced in mid-November as part of AT&T;’s plan to trim down and split into three separate entities.

The company said Thursday that it had made the buyout offer to 72,000 employees, about 5,800 fewer than originally announced. It attributed the difference to a clerical error. The total comes to about half the company’s supervisory staff.

AT&T; hasn’t said precisely how many jobs it needs to cut as part of its breakup, but some analysts have estimated that as many as 30,000 positions will be eliminated eventually. Overall, AT&T; has almost 304,000 employees.

The buyout pace quickened last week as 800 managers accepted the offer, bringing the total to 2,624. About 275 more had signed on by Thursday morning, and the total could swell as high as 3,600 by the deadline, Stinson said.

In a sweeping move to compete in the rapidly changing telecommunications industry, AT&T; announced in September that it was dividing into three new companies: a communications services provider, a communications equipment maker and a computer maker.

The communications services business, which includes long-distance, cellular service and credit card calling, will retain the AT&T; name. Names for the others have not been selected.

Plans have already been announced to cut 8,500 jobs at AT&T;’s computer arm, the former NCR business that AT&T; acquired in 1991. About 4,100 of those jobs will be cut by year-end, leaving that operation with 38,900 employees, Stinson said.

AT&T; said it will decide how many layoffs are needed at the communications services and communications equipment units after the manager buyouts are tabulated.