Why Verizon's new CEO is cutting 13,000 jobs at the wireless company

By Emily Bary

Verizon's stock has been a major laggard and the company has failed to show annual earnings growth recently. CEO Dan Schulman says layoffs will make Verizon 'faster and more focused.'

Verizon's workforce has already gotten meaningfully smaller since 2020, and now the company is embarking on another big round of cuts.

Less than two months into his role as chief executive of Verizon Communications, Dan Schulman has signaled a shakeup for the telecommunications company.

First he suggested that Verizon (VZ) could get more serious about business growth after ceding market share for years, though he later clarified that the company would pursue that in a disciplined way. Now he's embarking on a major cost-cutting program, starting with the elimination of more than 13,000 jobs, or about 13% of the company's workforce based on the employee count disclosed in its last annual filing.

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"The actions we're taking are designed to make us faster and more focused, positioning our company to deliver for our customerswhile continuing to capture new growth opportunities," Schulman said in a letter to employees that was reviewed by MarketWatch.

He addressed a need to "simplify our operations to address the complexity and friction that slow us down and frustrate our customers."

The Wall Street Journal reported last week on Verizon's plans for sizable layoffs.

Verizon's stock has lagged the broad market and rival names meaningfully in recent years. Over a five-year span, it's down 31%, versus a 87% gain for the S&P 500 index SPX, a 18% rise for AT&T's stock (T) and a 63% rally in T-Mobile shares (TMUS). And while AT&T's stock has actually beaten the S&P 500 over a two-year period, with a 59% rise versus a 47% gain for the benchmark index, Verizon's stock has only managed to climb 14% in that span.

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Meanwhile, the company has struggled to find profit growth. Adjusted earnings per share fell in each of the last three fiscal years, though analysts expect a 2.3% rise for 2025.

"The fact that Verizon is undertaking significant job cuts is no big surprise given the new CEO had signaled an intention to take out material cost from the business," BNP Paribas analyst Sam McHugh wrote following the WSJ report, which said the company could cut perhaps 15,000 jobs. McHugh pegged consensus expectations at between 10,000 and 15,000 job reductions.

By his rough math, a cut of about 12,000 employees would equate to approximately $1 billion in 2026 cost savings.

Verizon's headcount has fallen dramatically since the end of 2020, when the company disclosed having about 132,200 employees. That compares with the 99,600 employees Verizon had at the end of 2024.

And while job cuts can drive cost efficiencies, McHugh is also thinking about the flip side. The impacted Verizon employees "have not been doing nothing, and bigger job reductions could impact morale in the business...so a key question is how these cuts could impact revenue/efficiency within what's remaining in the organization," he wrote last week.

As for those leaving Verizon, the company said it will be putting $20 million toward a retraining fund that's specifically focused "on the opportunities and necessary skill sets as we enter the age of AI."

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-Emily Bary

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11-20-25 0807ET