Dish Network LLC, the satellite television and wireless service provider, informed the state on Tuesday that it will cut another 53 jobs, bringing the tally of workers let go since November to 718.
The Douglas County-based company, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp., also announced that Mike Kelly, the executive overseeing retail wireless strategy, has resigned and will depart at the end of the month.
“We appreciate his hard work and commitment to our business. While we conduct a search for his successor, Hamid Akhavan, president and CEO of EchoStar, will lead strategy and key day-to-day operations for the retail wireless brands,” company spokesman Ted Wietecha said in an email.
Employees at 9601 S. Meridian Blvd. and 5701 S. Santa Fe Drive were told Tuesday that they would lose their jobs effective April 20, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter the company filed with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
The bulk of layoffs, about 49, involve members of the sales associates or sales account executives, according to the letter filed by Dish General Counsel Kaylee Hyman.
“After a thorough review of our operations and consideration of a changing business environment, we made the difficult decision to remove 53 positions in our company,” Wietecha said. “Today’s decision reflects our focus on improving company performance in an evolving marketplace, and we will continue to make strategic hires and investments to support our growth.”
Last month the company announced it would let go of 157 workers and then another nine workers in two separate reductions. And in November, the company told the state it would cut 499 workers after a disappointing earnings report.
After years of acquiring wireless spectrum, Dish launched the nation’s fourth wireless network in 2020 with its acquisition of Boost Mobile, which it acquired as a condition of the approval of the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint.
Dish built and launched a cutting-edge 5G cellular network at a record clip, meeting federal deadlines, but amassing $21 billion in debt in the process.
But with customers leaving its legacy pay-television business at a faster clip, and new customers signing up more slowly than expected for its wireless business, Dish has struggled to find the money needed to both complete its network buildout and service its debt.
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DISH Network to lay off 157 workers two months after letting go nearly 500
At the end of last year, Dish Network and EchoStar, both founded by Charlie Ergen, merged so Dish could access EchoStar’s stronger balance sheet and find more favorable terms from creditors.
EchoStar, however, has had to cancel two debt exchange offerings on close to $5 billion in Dish convertible notes after investors pushed back. The exchange would have allowed the company to push back a heavy wall of debt coming due in 2025 and 2026 to 2030, buying it more time.
A group of creditors holding a large portion of the debt have threatened legal action for “debt swap fraud,” accusing Dish of placing valuable wireless spectrum out of reach as collateral following the merger with EchoStar.