T-Mobile is ramping up hiring even after carrying out multiple rounds of layoffs tied to its shift toward becoming a digital-first company.
After Sirini Gopalan became CEO of T-Mobile in November, the company quietly laid off an unknown number of employees the following month, impacting sales managers and account executives.
By January, it had laid off more workers in end-user support, resource planning, consumer and retail, sales, product, and business departments.
The company later conducted additional job cuts in March and April, affecting employees in IT and at various worksites in Washington state.
In a statement to The Street in January, a T-Mobile spokesperson said that despite recent layoffs, the company is still “continuing to hire” to ensure it has the “right focus, structure and momentum” for innovation and investing in customers.
T-Mobile hiring in India after U.S. job cuts
Amid these efforts, T-Mobile has quietly opened its first technology center in Hyderabad, India, on June 4, where it plans to hire nearly 1,000 people by 2027, according to a recent Reuters report.
The space is 250,000 square feet, and T-Mobile leased it as its new global capability center. Employees at this location will work on product development, software engineering, data analytics, cybersecurity, and DevOps.
The Indian state government told Reuters that its country’s global capability centers are no longer low-cost outsourcing hubs but have instead evolved into local offices of global companies, providing support for multiple functions.
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“Our global technology centre in Hyderabad will play an important role in strengthening our engineering and digital capabilities while enabling teams to build solutions that support our customers and business priorities,” said Chandra Gupta, vice president of IT operations at TMUS Global Solutions, in a statement to Quartz.
T-Mobile’s recent U.S. layoffs and new tech center in India come after it promised in 2019 to create thousands of jobs nationwide over the next few years to solidify its $26 billion merger with Sprint, which was finalized in 2020.
Large tech companies, such as Meta, Oracle, and Amazon, have recently opened global capability centers in India to help support core operations that directly influence decision-making, customer experience, and revenue.
“To manage this complexity, companies need leaders who can think globally and execute locally, and India’s talent pool is uniquely suited for that,” said ANSR CEO Lalit Ahuja in a statement to CNBC in November last year.
T-Mobile doubles down on becoming digital-first for customers
This shift from T-Mobile also comes as its digital transformation, introduced by Gopalan in October last year, has become a top priority for the company.
During an earnings call in October, he said that the company’s digital transformation will simplify processes and tackle “customer pain points.”
Even though T-Mobile expects to generate $3 billion in savings from its artificial intelligence and digital initiatives by 2027, Gopolan said during another earnings call in February that these goals weren’t aimed at laying off employees to cut costs.
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“This has been a three-year journey: Step one was building the capabilities, having our IT in place, having the digital in place,” said Gopolan. “Step two was customer adoption, which is actually working with customers in moving them to assisted digital. And step three is now scaling.”
Amid these changes, T-Mobile has reportedly been quietly closing stores in recent weeks, leading to additional layoffs.
T-Mobile is one of many tech companies nationwide choosing to reshape its workforce amid growing AI adoption, according to recent Challenger, Gray & Christmas data.
How manyU.S. employers axed jobs in May 2026:
- In May, U.S. employers announced 97,006 layoffs, up 16% from the 83,387 job cuts recorded in April.
- The technology industry announced 38,242 job cuts in May, the highest monthly total for the sector since August 2024, when 39,563 layoffs were recorded.
- Specifically in telecommunications, 253 job cuts were announced in May, bringing the sector’s total for this year to 2,007.
- Also, in May, 38,579 layoffs were due to AI, 16,587 were due to market/economic conditions and 4,546 were the result of closures.
Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas
“The labor market is being reshaped by technology in real time,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in the report. “AI is now the leading reason companies give for cutting jobs and the primary industry citing it is Technology.”
“Technology, already the year’s biggest job cutter, saw its steepest month of cuts since early 2023, even as it remains the sector with the most hiring plans this year,” he continued.
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