Verizon Communications says roughly 10,400 employees will participate in a voluntary retirement package that runs now through June 2019. The telecom giant, which currently has about 152,300 employees, says the voluntary layoffs are necessary amid Verizon's effort to realign its business ahead of the 5G wireless network era.
Employees who accept the buyout offer can receive up to 60 weeks’ salary, bonus and benefits, depending on length of service, Verizon said today. The staff exits will occur in three stages:
- Stage one: Year-end 2018.
- Stage two: End of March 2019.
- Stage three: End of June 2019.
A Verizon reorganization, announced in November 2018, will activate on January 1, 2019.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg says the changes are proactive moves rather than reactive in nature. “These changes are well-planned and anticipated, and they will be seamless to our customers," Vestberg asserts. "This is a moment in time, given our financial and operational strength, to begin to better serve customers with more agility, speed and flexibility.”
Verizon Evolves for 5G, Software Defined Networks
Verizon is still growing but the company -- like many telecom firms -- has been working overtime to address market shifts and next-generation opportunities in software-defined networking (SDN) and more.
Verizon's Q3 2018 revenues were $32.6 billion, up 2.8 percent from third-quarter 2017, the company said in October 2018.
Verizon, like the broader telecom industry, largely missed an opportunity to dominate the cloud services era -- leaving the door open for Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, in particular, to gain critical mass on their own. Amid that reality, Verizon sold its data center business to Equinix in mid-2017.
