CEO Dan Schulman has confirmed that Verizon is going to lay off more than 13,000 employees and there will be some changes across every part of the company. The company is reducing its headcount and cutting outsourcing and other outside labor expenses in service of “building a stronger Verizon,” Schulman wrote in a memo to employees. The company will also convert 179 retail stores it owns into franchise outlets and close one store.
In September, Verizon said it had about 100,000 full-time employees, so the layoffs represent about 13 percent of the workforce. Over the past three years, Verizon had cut about 20,000 jobs. Meanwhile, the $20 billion acquisition of telecom company Frontier Communications is set to close early next year.
Last week it was reported that Verizon was set to eliminate approximately 15,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting campaign due to tough competition and a decline in postpaid wireless customers. Schulman — a former PayPal CEO who took up his current job in October — indicated during an earnings call last month that the company will “take bold and fiscally responsible actions to redefine Verizon’s trajectory at this critical inflection point for our company. These will not be incremental changes.”
In Thursday’s memo, Shulman described the size reduction as an effort to create a leaner, more customer-focused operation. “As a customer-first culture, we must align our teams and resources to create new value for customers and build a faster, stronger and more dynamic Verizon,” Shulman wrote. “To do this, we need to simplify our operations to remove the complexity and friction that slow us down and frustrate our customers.”
Verizon says it has set up a $20 million reskilling and career transition fund to assist its laid-off workers. “This fund will focus on skills development, digital training and job placement to help our people take their next steps,” Shulman claimed. “As we enter the age of AI, Verizon is the first company to establish a fund to focus specifically on the opportunities and required skill sets.”