Communications equipment company Ericsson said it will permanently cut 94 field service positions in Sacramento, along with 76 at an office in Irvine, as part of a reduction of 750 technicians nationwide.
The company's notice to the California Employment Development Department says the California workers’ last day will be Sept. 29.
The letter from Ericsson was received by the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency in July, and was published by the EDD in Sept. 15.
Stockholm-based Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC) said the Sacramento layoffs are part of a move Ericsson is making across the country to have field services performed by authorized service providers, said Ericsson spokesman Jimmy Duvall, in an email.
The company didn't clarify whether this action is a reduction in local staff or a closure of the office. The local Ericsson office is in an industrial and warehouse neighborhood at 4119 South Market Court in North Sacramento.
Ericsson said that since 2015 it's been using its own employees to work on utility towers during the peak build-out of 5G networks. That work is now no longer at a peak, and Ericcson is seeing a downturn in market demand. So the company is reducing its workforce of technicians by 750 around the country. It will use outside vendors for that work going forward.
“With the downturn in market demand, we can no longer justify the cost this unique capability represents,” the company said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring a seamless transition for our customers, employees and partners through this transition and Ericsson remains committed to the end-to-end network engineering, roll-out, tuning and optimization business.”
Ericsson said that by employing technicians directly for eight years, it allowed the company to "accelerate local service delivery capabilities during the peak of the 5G cycle, with quality and an unwavering commitment to safety, setting a new standard for tower technicians."
Ericsson makes equipment for networks, produces cloud software and services, and provides enterprise hardware and software. It also has subsidiaries that make telecom equipment and infrastructure. Cloud communications provider Vonage is an Ericsson division after an acquisition in July last year.
The Swedish company has more than 100,000 employees globally and some 8,600 employees in more than 30 locations in the U.S., according to its website.
This story has been updated to make clearer that Ericsson informed the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency of the planned layoffs in July.
