Verizon Communications is preparing to lay off roughly 15,000 employees in the coming days, marking the largest job reduction in the company’s history, according to The Wall Street Journal. The cuts are part of a sweeping restructuring aimed at lowering costs as the carrier faces persistent subscriber losses and intensifying competition in the U.S. wireless and home internet markets.
The majority of reductions will come through layoffs. An additional 200 company-owned retail stores will be converted into franchised locations, removing those workers from Verizon’s payroll. Verizon employed about 100,000 people as of February.
The move underscores the pressure Verizon is under as competitors continue to erode its once-dominant position. The company has posted three consecutive quarters of net postpaid phone subscriber losses — a key profit metric — including a net loss of 7,000 consumer postpaid connections in the most recent quarter. Analysts had expected a gain of around 19,000. Rival carriers AT&T and T-Mobile, meanwhile, continue to grow.
Verizon has attempted to slow customer churn with promotions like a price-lock guarantee on select plans, but analysts say the impact has been limited.
The restructuring follows the appointment of Daniel Schulman — former CEO of PayPal and Virgin Mobile USA — as Verizon’s new chief executive last month. Schulman has signaled a focus on reducing the company’s cost base and overhauling legacy operations that are no longer profitable. “Verizon is at a critical inflection point,” he said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call, emphasizing that greater efficiency and a “scrappier” operating model will be central to the company’s turnaround.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote that while the task will be difficult in a saturated telecom market, it remains “possible – if not probable – that Verizon can improve operating and financial performance over time while remaining a rational actor in the marketplace.”
Verizon’s layoffs also come amid a broader wave of corporate job cuts across major U.S. employers — including Amazon, UPS, and Target — as companies move to streamline operations in response to slower growth and rising labor costs.
For Verizon, the cost-cutting push reflects both macroeconomic caution and a strategic recalibration of a business facing technology shifts, market saturation, and stronger competition for every incremental subscriber.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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