Overland Park ? Sprint Corp. said Friday it will cut 1,200 jobs affecting 1,100 employees in the long-distance company’s latest effort to cut costs.

The cuts will come from the Overland Park, Kan.-based company’s global markets division, which includes most of Sprint’s struggling long-distance business.

The company, which employs 80,000 people, did not say where the jobs would be cut. The trims, through layoffs and normal attrition, are expected to occur over the next several weeks. About 100 of the 1,200 jobs are not currently filled, Sprint spokesman Mark Bonavia said.

“We’re still determining which employees will be impacted and which locations those will be,” Bonavia said.

Dallas, Atlanta, Reston, Va., and the Kansas City area have the largest concentrations of global markets employees, Bonavia said.

Spokesman Nicholas Sweers said that in some cities, Sprint will eliminate its digital subscriber line, or DSL, platform, which allows high-speed connections to the Internet. However, Sprint is looking for a partner to offer DSL service in those cities.

Sprint also plans to combine its different Web-hosting services, Sweers said.

“We are making significant steps that will enhance our focus on meeting financial commitments and position us to meet marketplace demands for 2003 and beyond,” Len Lauer, president of Sprint’s Global Markets Group, said in a news release.

Since eliminating 7,500 jobs last October and 3,000 more in February, Sprint the nation’s third-largest long-distance carrier has trickled out layoffs a few dozen to a few hundred at a time. But employees have said the constant layoffs are hurting morale.

The global markets unit reported a $75 million operating loss in the first quarter.

Like others in the industry, Sprint, which is scheduled to announce second-quarter earnings on Thursday, has struggled to cut costs, boost earnings and compete more effectively with the bigger long-distance operators AT&T and MCI.

“Sprint hasn’t announced as many job cuts as others in the space, so I guess it was due,” said Jeffrey Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst based in Atlanta. “It’s another sign that the telecom rebound is not here yet.”

On June 7, Moody’s slashed Sprint’s debt ratings to near-junk status. Moody’s cut its rating on Sprint’s senior unsecured long-term debt from Baa3 to Baa2, one notch above junk status, and cut Sprint’s short-term debt to Prime-3 from Prime-2.

Moody’s attributed the downgrade, which affected about $22 billion of debt, to cash-flow concerns about Sprint.

Buffeted by industry competition and the general economic slowdown, Sprint has seen its stock prices decline from the $60 per share it reached when a planned merger with WorldCom Inc. was first announced in October 1999. Federal and European regulators eventually blocked the $129 billion deal.

Since revelations that WorldCom, the nation’s No. 2 long-distance provider, disguised $3.8 billion in expenses, Sprint has tried to assure investors about its accounting practices. But analysts have said Sprint could benefit from WorldCom’s woes if large long-distance customers defect to other providers.

Shares of Sprint FON were up 26 cents to $11.56 Friday in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.