On Thursday the Trump administration announced the long-awaited September jobs report revealed 119,000 jobs were created in the month of September. However, hours after the news was released, Verizon announced its plans to lay off nearly 13,000 workers, putting a slight sting in the otherwise optimistic news from the jobs report.
Verizon is beginning to lay off more than 13,000 workers on Thursday in an effort to trim down staff and increase investments. “We must reorient our entire company around delivering for and delighting our customers,” CEO Dan Schulman wrote in a letter. He noted that the company was aiming to “to address the complexity and friction that slow us down and frustrate our customer” by simplifying operations. Layoffs will reportedly account for 20 percent of their workforce, which included 100,000 full-time employees at the end of last year.
The company lost 7,000 net consumer postpaid phone connections. Their analysts previously forecast a gain of 19,000. Competition remains rampant as both AT&T and T-Mobile have steadily grown postpaid subscriber counts. Schulman was appointed as CEO last month to help trim down on spending and expand earning potential. He previously served as CEO at PayPal and Virgin Mobile USA.
The news from Verizon comes as several other big companies have announced layoffs right before the Christmas season. In October Amazon announced it was also cutting a decent percentage of its workforce. Report more on Amazon cutting 30,000 of its employees: Amazon will slash 30,000 corporate jobs starting Tuesday, according to a report — unleashing one of the US’s biggest job bloodbaths this century as the company aggressively revamps its business with artificial intelligence.
Sources told Reuters the reductions — which amount to 9% of Amazon’s global office-based workforce of 350,000 — will begin Tuesday and could unfold over several weeks. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Seattle-based web giant’s sweeping layoffs mark the biggest in a series of major contractions for the company, which has slashed tens of thousands of jobs since CEO Andy Jassy took over from the company’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos in 2021.
In 2022 and 2023, Jassy cut a total of 27,000 jobs, Reuters reported. Those cuts targeted Amazon Web Services, its devices group and entertainment units including Prime Video and Twitch.