Wireless phone provider UScellular plans to lay off an estimated 4,100 workers nationwide as part of its acquisition by T-Mobile, including workers at several company-owned stores in Iowa.
In a March 26 letter to James Clopton, program manager with the U.S. Department of Employment Services, UScellular employee relations director Izik Youker wrote that “employment separations” with remote employees, as well as employees at corporate-owned US Cellular stores, “are planned to commence on June 2, 2025 or within 14 days thereafter.”
However, Mr. Youker said in the letter that “a majority” of affected UScellular employees will be offered employment with T-Mobile “at a salary or wage rate and with benefits that, when taken as a whole, are no less favorable to these employees’ current salary or wage rate and benefits.”
The UScellular lay off will impact workers at corporate-owned stores in Cedar Rapids, Coralville and Iowa City, as well as a call center in southwest Cedar Rapids.
In May 2024, T-Mobile agreed to acquire UScellular’s wireless operations and select spectrum assets in a deal valued at an estimated $4.4 billion. The deal is expected to close in mid-2025.
Based in Chicago, UScellular is the fourth-largest full-service wireless carrier in the United States.
