WorldCom lays off 3,700 workers, including some in Tulsa

WorldCom lays off 3,700 people nationwide Wednesday as the telecommunications industry continues to struggle. News on 6 reporter Steve Berg visited the company's Tulsa offices and says employees laid

Wednesday, April 3rd 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WorldCom lays off 3,700 people nationwide Wednesday as the telecommunications industry continues to struggle. News on 6 reporter Steve Berg visited the company's Tulsa offices and says employees laid off Wednesday, were apparently victims of a sluggish economy.

"Every company, every business, is going through this." Nelson Mejia put seven years of hard work into WorldCom. But the toughest part is saying goodbye. "Oh yeah, that is probably one of the hardest things to leave the company, friends, so many friends through the seven years." Nelson has a family with 3 kids to worry about. But his wife has a job. And he has a 2-month financial cushion. And he says he has faith in God. "I mean I'm not happy that it happened, but I knew it was either me or somebody else."

He says layoffs are just the name of the game right now as companies downsize or go out altogether. "I hope that it's not the case with WorldCom, WorldCom is a good company, although I'm not part of it anymore, but it's a good company. I have no hard feelings at all.â€ WorldCom has 85,000 workers. The 3,700 layoffs are 4.4% of its workforce.

The company has $30-billion in debt. Most of the people we talked to here had the impression that there were only a handful of layoffs here, but the company has not given specific numbers for Tulsa.