CenturyLink is trimming its workforce by approximately 175 jobs in locations across the 16 states that it serves, a spokesman confirmed this morning.
The same spokesman said that CenturyLink decided to discontinue holiday bonuses for its employees.
"As part of CenturyLink’s ongoing effort to remain cost-competitive and align resources with customer demand, we will offer voluntary separations to select union-represented field operations employees," the spokesman wrote in an email to FierceTelecom this morning.
The nation's third-largest fixed-line operator had 46,000 employees at the end of September.
Citing the merger with Level 3 and the implementation of automation across its network as key factors, CenturyLink cut about 1,000 employees from its workforce back in May.
RELATED: Automation, Level 3 deal lead to 1,000 job cuts at CenturyLink
If the proposed merger between Sprint and T-Mobile gains regulatory approval, there could be another round of jobs cuts in the telecom industry.
Last month CenturyLink announced that Andrew Dugan had replaced Aamir Hussain as CTO. CenturyLink has also seen the departure of some of its other high-level executives this year including the exit of James Feger this summer who left to take a job at F5 Networks.
Feger had spent 14 years with CenturyLink, most recently as vice president of network virtualization. Anil Simlot, vice president of virtual services development and support, has taken over Feger's former responsibilities.
After a two-year stint at CenturyLink, Adam Dunstan left his position as vice president of SDN/NFV engineering in May. Simlot's team also took over Dunstan's duties.