According to an AT&T filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission today, the carrier is looking to rid itself of 1.5-percent of its current employees, with many of the losses from management levels.  The news comes in advance of AT&T announcing its quarterly results, which is expected to happen on Tuesday next week.  Describing the redundancies as the “next step in streamlining its operations”, the carrier is blaming excess managers acquired from recent company buy-outs.

However, they’re keen to stress that the majority of the lay-offs will be in areas with which consumers have no contact, and as such the customer services experience will remain the same.  The carrier is also denying that this is a sign that the year will be punctuated by cost-saving job losses; it expects its workforce to remain stable until at least the end of 2008.  What won’t be so happy is the bank balance: the quarterly results will be hit with a pre-tax charge of $374 million in redundancy pay-outs.

The news might be making some extraneous execs nervous, but the market appears cavalier about it.  Shares in AT&T were up 33 cents in pre-market trading.  Last month, the carrier was rumored to be offering VPs severance packages to encourage them to leave the company, with the threat of demotion to lower ranks the only alternative.