hibernating, while others are just plain failing. Virgin Mobile, considered one of the successful MVNOs despite a shaky financial situation, might not be dying, but they’re definitely hurting. Rumors are now swirling that they’re poised to lay off 300 employees in the near future. The cuts would mostly come in the company’s Northern California branch, though the headquarters in New Jersey could see some layoffs as well. The craziest part of all this is that Virgin Mobile’s employee count is 450. Uh, that’s quite a drastic cut, then, to say the least. The layoff process would take place over nine months, so it wouldn’t be an instantaneous severance. Still, though, I wonder how they’ll operate with reduced staff. Hopefully, it won’t mean more of their automated voice system on the customer service line (though, inevitably, it probably will). Despite the company’s poor performance and the possible cuts, Virgin Mobile’s top four execs got pay raises of up to 30 percent. So they’re beefing up the top and cutting the bottom. Then again, VentureBeat speculates that the raises could be because of the stock dropping, since the execs “options are now worth nothing.” However, these cuts are certainly not final. This is just an idea that the Virgin crew is mulling. We’ll see in the next few months how they decide to play this.]]>
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