Over the holiday break Sprint proclaimed that the company would be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States, a move President Elect attempted to take underserved credit for. A Sprint press release says these new jobs "will support a variety of functions across the organization including its Customer Care and Sales teams" over the next few years, though the exact details of the additions wouldn't be made clear until down the road.
Granted, the company has actually been on a tear
eliminating thousands of jobs as it struggles with competitors and debt, so whether these jobs would be a net gain is unclear.
These new positions are courtesy of an investment plan Sprint-owner Softbank announced back in October as part of a $100 billion joint technology investment fund with Saudi Arabia.
Despite this plan emerging before Trump was even elected, the President Elect has been trying to take credit for the jobs. He did so again shortly after Sprint's announcement, launching a media event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida attempting to imply his business accumen was to thank for Sprint announcement.
"I was just called by the head people at Sprint, and they are going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States," Trump said. "They have taken them from other countries. They are bringing them back to the United States."
Softbank and Sprint, which are trying to get the new President to sign off on a T-Mobile Sprint merger (blocked by regulators in 2014 because it would have reduced competition), are privately denying Trump played a role in the jobs, but publicly encouraging this narrative. Without directly giving him credit, Trump is singled out by name in Sprint's announcement to help bolster the idea the President Elect is to thank for the new jobs.
"We are excited to work with President-Elect Trump and his Administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the US," said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure in a statement. "We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the US and ensure prosperity for all Americans."
Sprint's not alone, the New York Times noting that more than a few companies clearly expect to extract demands from Trump in exchange for helping him fib about job creation. Trump could certainly refuse these advances, but the kind of folks he's appointing to pick the next FCC boss have made it clear their goal is to defund and defang regulators like the FCC, not to build the kind of agencies that could challenge ISPs or hinder mega-mergers of this type.
Of course job promises in general (especially those tied to mega-merger promises) can often be hot air, and in some instances may never materialize at all. In fact, megamergers of this type usually result in a notable reduction in staff as redundant positions are inevitably eliminated. When asked for more detail on precisely when and where these jobs will materialize, Sprint is
telling news outlets that "it's premature to speculate on specifics."