Overland Park ? Sprint Corp. will lay off about 100 employees by the end of August as it restructures its information technology department.

Chief information officer Michael Stout, in a July 1 memo, said the changes would create “more operating efficiency and cost effectiveness” and reduce layers of management.

Melinda Tiemeyer, a Sprint spokeswoman, said Thursday she could not say how many of the layoffs would be at the company’s Overland Park headquarters.

Stout said Sprint would eliminate vacant positions, replace contract employees with Sprint employees and reassign employees to open positions, keeping the layoffs to “fewer than 100.” Tiemeyer said she could not give a more exact number.

Sprint has laid off more than 18,500 employees, including about 6,000 in the Kansas City area, since October 2001. Sprint has about 70,000 employees, with about 20,000 in the Kansas City area.