Verizon officially announces a major staff cut to help save its sinking ship

Last week, we learned that both T-Mobile and Verizon were reportedly making some big changes in the near future. While T-Mobile has yet to unveil its news, Verizon has now officially announced its plans, as first noted by Bloomberg and confirmed by Verizon. As it turns out, Big Red is cutting more than 13,000 jobs, and it will also be converting 179 corporate-owned retail stores into franchise locations.

According to a spokesperson for the company, this is an opportunity for the company to “reset, restructure and realign our priorities on ways that will help us regain our leadership as a communications provider.” As part of the move, the company has established a $20 million career transition fund for laid-off employees.

The latest employee cuts continue a trend that saw about 20,000 jobs lost in the three years prior to 2024. The big difference is these cuts were spread out, while this represents one of, if not the, largest cuts in the company’s history.

Despite rumors suggesting there might be other announcements around AI automations, the company also claims these cuts have nothing to do with its AI efforts.  Still, you can’t cut 13,000 staff members and expect it to be business as usual going forward. It is obvious that Verizon is in crisis and that it is going to need to find ways to reassure customers that a leaner Verizon is still worth paying premium dollars for.

For now, this is all Verizon has announced, though its CEO, Dan Schulman, says that in the coming weeks, new structural and organizational changes will be announced to its staff as it transitions to the next stage. Whether these changes eventually include AI optimizations and further changes to in-store processes remains unknown for now. The bigger question is whether Verizon can turn this all around in time, or if its reign as the biggest network is finally over for good. Only time will tell.