FairPoint Communications is cutting 400 jobs, about 10 percent of its workforce, as it continues to struggle financially after emerging from bankruptcy.

Company officials notified employees Thursday that about 130 people in Maine, 190 in New Hampshire and 55 in Vermont will lose their jobs in the coming months. Another 25 jobs will be cut in the other 15 states where FairPoint operates.

“We’re matching our workforce to our workload,” said FairPoint Maine President Mike Reed. “We’re under pretty heavy competition and everyone knows we’ve lost some access lines.”

FairPoint, based in Charlotte, N.C., provides telephone and high-speed Internet services in 18 states, with nearly 1.4 million access lines. It has about 4,000 employees, nearly 3,400 of whom are in northern New England.

The company filed for bankruptcy in the fall of 2009, 18 months after buying Verizon’s northern New England landline telephone and Internet operations for $2.3 billion. It has struggled since emerging from bankruptcy in January.

In its last earnings report, FairPoint reported losing $27.1 million for the April-June period while seeing the number of its access lines decline 6.4 percent from a year ago. Its stock price has fallen from over $24 a share after its emergence from bankruptcy to about $6, where it was trading Thursday afternoon.

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The jobs now being cut include about 100 management positions and 300 union-represented jobs. All eligible employees will receive severance packages, which are expected to total between $7 million and $13 million.

The workforce reduction will produce annual savings of about $34 million, FairPoint said.

The job cuts show that the company still hasn’t worked out its problems, said Peter McLaughlin, chairman of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers council overseeing locals in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

“We just barely have the people now to get done what we have to do, and now they’re going to cut another 400 heads,” McLaughlin said. “Our residential customers, our business customers and our wholesale customers are going to suffer. And that’s going to drive the company into the ground even further.”

All of the union layoffs involve IBEW members. FairPoint workers in the Communications Workers of America union, who work at FairPoint’s call centers, have a separate contract and will not be affected by the job cuts, Reed said.

While FairPoint continues to lose money, Reed said, the company is meeting its goals for customer service and expanding broadband Internet throughout northern New England.

 


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