Nearly 5,000 BellSouth employees take voluntary severance

ATLANTA - Almost 5,000 BellSouth employees have volunteered to take a severance pay package from the Atlanta company and will leave by the end of the month.<br> <br> The strong response to the offer means fewer than 30 workers had to be fired from the telecommunications firm, which in May announced it was cutting about 6 percent of its work force.<br> <br> The packages are worth up to 150 percent of an employee&#39;s current salary, plus health benefits for six months. In addition, employees can get two years of college tuition and fees paid by the company.<br> <br> &#34;If they don&#39;t take the package, then they might be forced out with a less attractive package,&#34; said telecom analyst Jeff Kagan.<br> <br> Nearly half of those taking the offer had been with the company more than 20 years. Retirement-age employees who volunteered to go will get health benefits for life.<br> <br> The latest round of cuts reduces BellSouth&#39;s work force to about 80,000.<br> <br> BellSouth has eliminated about 9,200 jobs in the past 12 months because of falling profits.<br> <br> No more reductions are planned, said BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher. But, he said, the firm is in &#34;very uncertain economic and regulatory times. It is a measure of last resort but something we can never rule out.&#34;<br>