Verizon just delivered a brutal reality check to 13,000 employees. New CEO Dan Schulman announced the telecom giant is slashing 13% of its workforce - one of the industry's largest layoffs this year. The cuts come as the company bleeds customers and scrambles to fund a $20 billion expansion into fiber internet.
Verizon just dropped the hammer on more than 13,000 employees, marking one of the telecommunications industry's most dramatic workforce reductions this year. The announcement came through a company-wide memo from CEO Dan Schulman, who took the helm just last month after leading PayPal for nearly a decade. The timing couldn't be more telling - a new sheriff cleaning house as the telecom giant struggles with customer defections and mounting costs from its aggressive expansion strategy.
The numbers paint a stark picture. With around 100,000 full-time employees as of September, according to Verizon's Q3 earnings report, this 13% reduction represents the largest single workforce cut in the company's recent history. But it's not just about headcount - Schulman's memo makes clear this is about fundamentally rewiring how Verizon operates.
"Our current cost structure limits our ability to invest significantly in our customer value proposition," Schulman wrote to employees, painting the layoffs as necessary surgery rather than panic. The message, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, reveals a company under pressure from multiple fronts: bleeding subscribers, expensive acquisitions, and the need to compete in an increasingly crowded market.
The timing exposes Verizon's precarious position. The company's most recent earnings showed a loss of 7,000 postpaid phone customers, even as rivals like T-Mobile continue gaining ground. That subscriber erosion comes at the worst possible moment, as Verizon doubles down on expensive bets to transform from a traditional wireless carrier into a broadband powerhouse.
The $20 billion merger with fiber provider Frontier and the acquisition of antenna-based internet service provider Starry represent Schulman's vision for Verizon's future. But funding that transformation requires serious cost discipline - hence the mass layoffs hitting every division of the company.
