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NEW YORK - Wireless carrier Sprint Nextel plans to lay off several thousand employees, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The newspaper said the scale of job cuts was not clear, but they were expected to number several thousand.
Company spokesman James Fisher declined comment on the report.
Sprint, the number three US mobile service, has been losing ground to rivals such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone, as it has struggled with network and customer service issues.
Sprint's new chief executive, Daniel Hesse, who took over in December, was also considering a plan to consolidate Sprint's headquarters in Kansas, the Journal said.
In January 2007, Sprint announced plans to cut its full-time staff by about 5000. Fisher said these layoffs had been completed and the company now had just under 60,000 employees.
In the third quarter, Sprint lost high-value bill-paying mobile customers and was also hurt by the credit squeeze for sub-prime mortgage borrowers, who often buy prepaid mobile services that Sprint offers.
Some analysts expect the company to report continued customer losses for the fourth quarter.
Sprint has also been criticised for its plan to spend US$5 billion on a new high-speed wireless network based on WiMax.
- Reuters
