Verizon Communications stunned the telecom world Thursday by announcing it will eliminate more than 13,000 jobs in what easily qualifies as the company’s most dramatic diet since the invention of the unlimited data plan.
Incoming CEO Dan Schulman, fresh from PayPal and still learning where the Verizon cafeteria hides the good coffee, told employees the cuts are essential because the current cost structure “limits our ability to invest significantly in our customer value proposition.” Translation: too many paychecks, not enough 5G sparkle.
The layoffs will hit across the organization. Even the outsourced workers who patiently explain why your bill went up again are getting the boot.
Verizon also plans to convert 179 company-owned stores into franchises. One lonely store didn’t even make the franchise cut and will simply cease to exist, presumably vanishing into the same void where missing socks go.
Schulman promised the moves will remove “complexity and friction” that slow the company down. Customers, long accustomed to friction while waiting forty-five minutes on hold, reportedly greeted the news with cautious optimism.
A company spokesperson called the purge “an opportunity to reset, restructure, and realign priorities.” Employees affected by the reset were unavailable for comment, busy updating résumés printed on company printers one last time.
Reuters had speculated last week that up to 15,000 jobs might disappear. Verizon managed to undershoot that rumor by roughly 2,000 positions, a rare instance of the company delivering better-than-expected news.
To soften the blow, Verizon is creating a $20 million career transition fund. Laid-off workers can now train for “opportunities and necessary skill sets as we enter the age of AI.” The company stressed the cuts have nothing to do with AI, which apparently is still too busy writing poetry to replace call-center reps.
Market pressure continues to mount. While T-Mobile celebrated adding over a million new subscribers last quarter, Verizon managed a modest 44,000 – roughly the population of a medium-sized stadium that lost interest halfway through the game.
AT&T, meanwhile, sits comfortably in the middle, quietly wondering why nobody ever writes dramatic headlines about them.
Schulman, who joined the board in 2018 and took the top job last month, now faces the unenviable task of turning around a company that spent $52 billion on midband spectrum, $20 billion on Frontier Communications, and $6 billion on TracFone – all while discovering the subscriber pool has apparently entered witness protection.
Verizon ended 2024 with about 100,000 U.S. employees. After trimming nearly 20,000 jobs over the prior three years and now another 13,000-plus, the remaining staff may finally have enough elbow room in the company picnic photos.
Wall Street reacted with the traditional shrug reserved for telecom news. Shares barely moved, suggesting investors have long since accepted that “restructuring” is industry code for “we’ll do this again in eighteen months.”
For the thousands heading to the exits, the $20 million fund works out to roughly $1,500 per person before taxes – enough for a decent laptop and several months of aggressively applying to jobs that also plan to restructure soon.
As one anonymous Verizon veteran put it while boxing up desk plants: “At least the severance comes with unlimited texts.”
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