- Verizon will cut about 15,000 jobs—the largest workforce reduction in its 140-year history—to slash costs and stem subscriber losses.
- Cuts focus on non-union management and franchising ~200 retail stores, aiming to improve margins but risking morale and service quality.
The telecom industry just got a gut punch: Verizon Communications Inc. is set to cut around 15,000 jobs starting as early as next week, in what would be the largest workforce reduction in the company’s 140-year history.
That’s according to a Wall Street Journal report citing sources familiar with the matter, and it’s already stirring up fears about the broader ripple effects on America’s job market at a time when economic jitters are running high.
For context, Verizon—a behemoth with roughly 100,000 employees as of February—has been locked in a brutal battle for wireless customers and home broadband dominance.
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Why is Verizon Laying Off Employees?
The company has posted losses in postpaid phone subscribers (those who pay at the end of the billing cycle) for three straight quarters, a trend that’s left it trailing rivals like T-Mobile and AT&T.
Those competitors have been racking up gains: AT&T added about 400,000 postpaid lines in the third quarter of 2025, while T-Mobile piled on a million new lines in the same period.
Verizon, by contrast, shed 7,000 postpaid phones in the prior year’s Q3 and managed just 44,000 new prepaid wireless sales this year—hardly the momentum needed to fuel growth.
Enter the layoffs: They’re designed to slash costs and streamline operations, allowing Verizon to redirect resources toward reversing that subscriber bleed.
Not all 15,000 roles will vanish outright, though. A key piece of the puzzle involves shifting about 200 company-owned retail stores to franchised models, meaning those employees move to private operators’ payrolls rather than getting the boot.
Still, the net hit to Verizon’s headcount is massive, with the focus landing on non-union management ranks.
Official Statements
This comes under new CEO Dan Schulman, the former PayPal boss brought in to inject fresh energy.
Schulman has been blunt about the need for change, warning last month: “Our financial growth has relied too heavily on price increases, a strategic approach that relies too much on price without subscriber growth is not a sustainable strategy.”
He’s pushing for a “simpler, leaner, and scrappier business,” which includes “fundamentally restructuring our expense base” to stay competitive in an era of skyrocketing network upgrade costs and flatlining revenue.
It’s not like Verizon hasn’t trimmed before—2020 saw about 2,500 media division jobs axed amid pandemic fallout—but this scale is unprecedented.
Industry Leaders Are Also Experiencing Challenges
And it’s not happening in a vacuum. Broader telecom peers are feeling the squeeze too: AT&T’s workforce dipped by around 5,000 early this year, partly tied to a controversial return-to-office push where CEO John Stankey essentially told unhappy staff to look elsewhere.
T-Mobile, meanwhile, absorbed 4,100 UScellular workers after an acquisition but offered most new gigs internally—no outright cuts, but a clear sign of consolidation.
For the rank-and-file workers, the anxiety is palpable.
The Communications Workers of America (CWA), which reps thousands of Verizon’s frontline team, has been vocal about protecting severance and retraining amid past rounds of cuts.
Their stance echoes a raw truth from CWA District 2-13 Vice President Chris Shelton in recent union commentary on similar corporate moves: These aren’t just numbers—they represent real lives upended.
Analysts are watching closely to see if this purge pays off.
Verizon’s stock wobbled slightly on the news, but the bet is on improved margins in a sector where average revenue per user has stalled out.
Subscriber wins could follow if the savings fuel better 5G perks or bundled deals.
Yet skeptics point to risks like sagging employee morale or dips in service quality—issues that have already dinged Verizon in customer satisfaction surveys, where T-Mobile’s heavy investments in experience have pulled ahead.
As the cuts roll out next week, this could mark a turning point for Verizon: a gritty reset to reclaim its edge, or a symptom of deeper industry woes in a 5G-fueled future.
Either way, it’s a wake-up call that even giants aren’t safe from the churn.
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