Dazed employees filed out of Sprint’s downtown Lawrence offices Friday afternoon with more questions about their futures than the company could answer.

In a surprise meeting, more than 500 workers at the Sprint PCS Customer Service Center were told they would lose their jobs in late May when the company shuts down its Lawrence operations.

Charolette Doleman reads materials passed out by company officials after the announcement that Sprint PCS is closing its Lawrence Customer Service Center in May. Doleman and the other 500-plus employees at the center learned of the news Friday afternoon at the center, in the Riverfront Plaza.

“Basically, they didn’t give a whole lot of reasons, but it is slow business and the economy,” said Andy Smith, a Sprint employee leaving the meeting. “The stock price has really fallen.

“I’ve got a degree, so I’ll be all right, but I know a lot of other folks here are just hard-working parents, so I’m a little concerned for them.”

Sprint officials delivered the news after summoning all Lawrence employees to a 2 p.m. meeting at company offices at the Lawrence Riverfront Plaza. The employees were told the center was one of five across the country that would be closed and that all 509 Lawrence jobs would be eliminated by May 31.

Company officials said the Lawrence center was chosen for closure from among the firm’s 13 service centers because of its relatively small size.

“Lawrence is one of the smaller centers that we operate, and from an efficiency standpoint it makes more sense to operate on a larger scale,” said Jennifer Walsh, a Sprint PCS spokeswoman.

Broad restructuring

The Lawrence closing is part of a broader restructuring announced Friday that will eliminate about 3,000 jobs and save the Kansas City-based company an estimated $60 million a year.

The layoffs represent about 9 percent of PCS’ 32,000-employee work force and follow Sprint Corp.’s layoffs of 6,000 employees and 1,500 contract workers in recent months. Sprint PCS will keep eight customer service centers open.

Centers in Atlanta; Tallahassee, Fla.; and Jacksonville, Fla., will be closed April 16. A center in Irvine, Calif., will close June 28.

Rumors of possible job cuts surfaced after the stock price of Sprint PCS hit a 52-week low Feb. 6, and PCS and Sprint’s FON division last week announced losses of $1.4 billion.

PCS stock was down more than 9 percent Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, to a three-year low of $9.27 per share. Sprint FON stock was down more than 3 percent to a seven-year low of $13.30, but it rose in after-hours trading.

PCS employees, some visibly distraught, filed out the company’s offices after the brief announcement carrying white legal envelopes containing information about severance packages. Most said they were offered two weeks pay as severance if they stayed with the company until the May 31 closing date.

Company officials declined to be specific about severance packages, but said they varied depending on employee tenure.

‘It’s a big deal’

Many employees said they were concerned about finding new jobs in the slow economy.

“I’m a student and a veteran and already have a hard time putting food in my mouth,” employee Tony Jacobson said. “This just makes it tougher. Losing 400 or 500 jobs isn’t much in the national scheme of things, but in Lawrence it is a big deal.”

It was a big deal that area economic development leaders didn’t see coming.

“Based on conversations we had with the company within the last 30 to 60 days, we were under the impression that the trend would have been the exact opposite,” said Bill Sepic, president of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce. “We thought growth at the Lawrence center would have been the more likely scenario.”

The loss of the jobs, many of which paid $9 to $12 an hour, according to several employees, will be significant, Sepic said.

“It will have a residual effect,” Sepic said. “It will probably mean less money these people can give to their churches, spend at their grocery stores, just less money to spend in general. It will have a financial impact on the whole community.”

According to chamber figures, Sprint PCS was the third-largest private employer in the city. Walsh refused to disclose how many of the center’s employees were part-time and how many were full-time.

Slow job market

Cheryl White, a coordinator with the Lawrence Workforce Center, said the area job market was a tough one for work seekers.

“I would say we have recently seen a reduction in the number of jobs available in the Lawrence market,” White said. “But these individuals should have good, solid customer-service skills and good computer skills, so they should have some good transferable skills that will help them find jobs.”

City officials were among the first to get the news Friday. Mayor Mike Rundle’s office Friday morning received a letter announcing the closure as part of a federal requirement that companies making large-scale job reductions notify local government officials.

Rundle said he was disappointed to see the company leaving town, in part because it represented a major national corporate partner.

“You like having companies like that in your local portfolio, so it is sad to see them go,” Rundle said.

Sprint has had offices in the Riverfront Plaza since 1997 and located its PCS Customer Service Center there in 2000. The company occupies 22,000 square feet of the building.

PCS has a lease for the space that runs through May 2004, said Dan Simons, a member of the ownership group of the former mall. Simons is director of new ventures for The World Company, owner of the Lawrence Journal-World.

	1990: Lawrence Riverfront Plaza Factory Outlets opens. 1994: Tanger Factory Outlet Center opens in North Lawrence. 1997: Sprint opens 15,000-square-foot telecenter facility on Riverfront mall’s river level. 1998: Chelsea GCA Realty Inc., owner of the mall, sells it to Riverfront LLC, a Lawrence-based group of investors. 2001: SpringHill Suites opens. The 108-suite hotel occupies 84,000 square feet, or about 40 percent, of the Riverfront Plaza. 2002: Sprint discloses plans to close the Lawrence telecenter on May 31.