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Verizon says to shed 10,400 jobs by mid next year
- 2bitencryption 8y ago> The New York-based company has been looking at cutting costs as it ramps up investment in its next generation 5G network, which is expected to fuel growth. "we're about to grow a ton, better cut 10k jobs to maximize those gains." that just sounds so... weird to me.
- mikelward 8y agoI assume it's just their way of working "5G" buzzword into every press release.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoA businesses’s goal isn’t to increase expenses.
- Alex3917 8y ago> "we're about to grow a ton, better cut 10k jobs to maximize those gains." It makes perfect sense. T-Mobile basically bought up all the spectrum in the last round of bidding because they got a $4B breakup fee from AT&T as part of AT&T's failed acquisition. That has put all the other U.S. carriers on the defensive, because if they can't win a significant percentage of the 5G spectrum then they're going to be out of business.
- dd36 8y agoWait, Verizon doesn't have access to $4B? Verizon surely has significantly more net income than Tmobile. And therefore also has access to more leverage. $4B would not make that big of a difference.
- bduerst 8y agoVerizon makes about $4 B in quarterly net income, but they only have about $2 B cash on hand and have investors who expect a $2.4 B dividend each quarter. So yeah, this is a hard purchase for them, especially since they also have $209 B in liabilities already.
- dd36 8y agoNo way. You don't miss out on 5G because you couldn't come up with $4B and your smaller competitor could. If it were $40B, sure.
- adventured 8y agoThat's definitely correct, $4 billion is meaningless. If it were $40b to corner 5G, Verizon and AT&T could come up with it and T-Mobile couldn't. For significant business purposes, both Verizon and AT&T could borrow $40b easily. Whether for an acquisition or critical spectrum buy. They both have plenty of borrowing capacity despite being highly leveraged (it'll very likely end badly one day in the future).
- axaxs 8y agoAs I understand it(as of last year)...T-Mobile's "5G" is radically different than ATT/Verizons. The former using low band for coverage and penetration, and the latter using high band cell sites. So one has greater reach at the risk of congestion, and the other will have much less congestion but little reach. Which is better is to be seen...
- dfxm12 8y agoThe company is laying off 10,400 employees. According to the article: The company said it had 152,300 employees at the end of the third-quarter ending Sept. 30. That's a significant chunk of their workforce! I suspect Verizon will quietly be hiring thousands of people from places where they can legally pay them less than these 10+ thousand.
- nawtacawp 8y agoYeah you are probably right, these 10,000 can probably be outsourced.
- e40 8y agoContractors. With crappy benefits and less oversight. As long as terrible employment practices are "out of sight and mind" then it's OK for Verizon's board and management. Bonuses all around for getting the job done for cheaper!!
- PedroBatista 8y agoThat's pretty much the modus operandi of every telco around the World. The working conditions in call-centers or guys doing installation & maintenance tend to be absolutely horrendous across the board.
- m-app 8y agoIt doesn't say what growth – perhaps it's revenue growth, but my interpretation would be network/bandwidth/user/devices growth. The unfortunate thing with these huge service providers is that the number of people they staff to operate their infrastructure grows in conjunction with their network/bandwidth growth. Their operations simply doesn't scale as compared to the web-players who manage their global network with 10-20 people. Cutting costs and automating is something that is long overdue at these companies, and will be imperative when moving to mass-scale 5G networks. I'm not so sure the gains are to be "maximized" as you say, I think actually being able to make a profit will be hard enough in the coming years.
- couchdive 8y agoverizon 5G is a joke right now https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/at-t-ceo-knocks-verizon-s-new-5g-service-as-not-really-5g https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/at-t-ceo-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/2/17927712/verizon-5g-home-internet-real-speed-meaning https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/2/17927712/verizon-5g-home-...
- aswanson 8y agoThe need to hire a UI team for their tv gui. Comcast, of all companies, has out-innovated them in this area.
- throwaway5752 8y agoThat is 10,400 out of 152,300 per the article, or just a bit less than 7% of their workforce.
- agumonkey 8y agoI never realized how large they were
- TAForObvReasons 8y agoThey aren't laying off people, it was a voluntary separation: > Verizon Communications Inc said on Monday that about 10,400 employees will be leaving the U.S. wireless carrier by mid next year as part of the company’s voluntary separation program. They offered a package earlier in the year https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/verizon-offers-separation-plans-to-thousands-of-management-employees.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/verizon-offers-separation-pl...
- makecheck 8y agoOf course they are. Many, many companies offer a “voluntary first” incentive to avoid the bad press and services they might otherwise have to provide to laid-off people. Jobs went away. Sugar-coating the exact method of ending the jobs doesn’t change that.
- JackFr 8y ago> Of course they are. Why? Because you say so? We should ignore the literal words of the press release in favor of something you think may happen? In fact, the structure of the the offer is one that offer's a far greater incentive to those with a lot of seniority vs those who are newer. If we assume that many of these might be technician jobs under a union contract where more years of service equals higher pay, they could have more senior workers take the package, immediately hire new employees and save a decent amount of money. Granted, I've only seen that strategy in practice with municipal workers, but it makes no more assumptions than you do.
- Spivak 8y ago
- kevmo 8y agoSupply-side economics in action. This is what you get when the theoretical underpinning of your government is a napkin. http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1439217 http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah...
- draw_down 8y ago?
- yuy910616 8y agowait a sec...i read it's 44,000 like a few days ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/05/verizon-lays-off-44000-transfers-2500-more-it-jobs-to-indian-outsourcer-infosys/#31711eba46f5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/05/verizon...
- sct202 8y agoI read on the Layoff they had about 11.4k applicants, and 90% of them were accepted. Looks like the first wave is out starting Dec 28th. With such a large cut it would be weird to be rejected, I would feel an awkward mix of jealousy and loss to go back to work afterwards.
- teachrdan 8y agoWouldn't it be a compliment of sorts to be determined too valuable to be let go?
- C1sc0cat 8y agoDepends on the terms I know a lot in the UK who did this got a massive taxfree redundancy payment - then went to work for a competitor or went freelance my old boss went back to fixing COBOL
- jhare 8y agoI've been there, it's not really a good feeling since the remaining pressure can be burdensome depending on how much your company cuts. "You're too valuable to let go! Best yet is you don't have all those pesky coworkers!" Whatever leftover slop the company feeds you from the remains of your coworkers won't have that satisfying flavor.
- pkaye 8y agoWhat I have realized is that in such companies your importance to a company is only as much as the next project. When project agendas changes, next time might be your turn. So take it as a warning to find a better place soon as possible.
- root_axis 8y agoSounds to me like the rejection is a tacit admission by the company that you're too valuable to lose.
- rashomon 8y agoThat would be a fantastic way to ask for a raise.
- taurath 8y agoSo.. they finished laying the groundwork for their 5g network, and now they won’t need 7% of their workforce until 6g starts to go in 6-10 years?
- apexalpha 8y agoEvery ISP in the world is shedding employees. Every generation the network gets more digitized, more virtualised and you simply need less people to maintain and update it.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoAt least the described severance benefit might be on the correct order of magnitude to be considered reasonable and not totally and odiously evil, “As part of the separation program, the employees will get a salary of up to 60 weeks, bonus and benefits, depending on the length of their service, Verizon said.” This is why I always advise people to negotiate significance severance benefits up front, on the order of 6 months for junior employees, a year + bonuses and continued benefits for experienced employees. Companies absolutely agree to severance amounts like this, even for new grads, and sayingno to a company that won’t is just doing yourself a favor.
- hayksaakian 8y agoIf it's "up to" 60 weeks like they offer "up to X" internet speeds, then they're selling the best case but probably delivering half that.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoYes, but many times companies will pull unmitigated dick moves and give you 2 weeks, no benefits. By comparison, even 1/3 the stated number of weeks is decent (especially for junior employees). Still, it’s a cautionary reninder to negotiate significant severance benefits.
- scarface74 8y agoHow do you as a lowly employee "negotiate" severance benefits. You have no power. If they say "No" what are you going to do?
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoJust don’t accept that job if they say no. Look for a new job if your current one doesn’t offer this.
- scarface74 8y ago
- sdinsn 8y agoPutting the tax cuts to work, I see... Edit: I must have already triggered some right-wing snowflakes
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post flamebait on HN, and please don't use it for repetitive political battle. This is a site for intellectual curiosity, and those things don't go together. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- padseeker 8y agoI'm so glad we passed those corporate tax cuts that created all those jobs and helped provide for all those raises everyone got....
- jayess 8y agoFull-time employment is up by 2.7 million since the tax cuts went into effect. Michigan's unemployment is the lowest it's been since records have been kept: https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/21325 https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/21325
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 8y agoCorrelation does not imply causation. Can you provide evidence tax cuts stoked existing economic momentum? Or is the economy on fire despite these tax cuts? Stock buybacks [1] done with these tax cuts, enriching shareholders, does little to stoke economic demand or benefit the middle class [2]. More likely, cheap, loose credit is what has allowed the music to carry on. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-record-tax-cuts/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-re... (Tax cut triggers $437 billion explosion of stock buybacks) [2] https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/charts-see-how-much-of-gop-tax-cuts-will-go-to-the-middle-class https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/charts-see-how-much... (CHARTS: See How Much Of GOP Tax Cuts Will Go To The Middle Class)
- jayess 8y agoWhy aren't you asking this of all the comments in this parent? People seem to be blaming Verizon cutting 10,000 jobs on the tax cuts. Or claiming that jobs weren't created. Or that somehow the tax cuts were an economic negative. None of those things can be attributed to causation.
- deleted 8y ago
- kanox 8y agoAlso tumblr?
- porpoisely 8y agoI guess their fios price increases the past few years isn't going to their workforce. Does this mean they are done increasing the price for a while now?
- bogomipz 8y agoSo they're offsetting the Capex of their 5G rollout by eliminating employees that helped make Verizon 3G and 4G rollouts a success and the company a ton of cash? That seems like a pretty bad precedent if so. Also why would a brand new network deployment require any less head count? I assume they will just hire new workers when the uptake in 5G begins in earnest?
- dfxm12 8y agoI assume they will just hire new workers when the uptake in 5G begins in earnest? Probably at lower wages to boot.
- roymurdock 8y agoJudging by the posts on this layoff board, most of the layoffs are older, more expensive folk, so it seems like Verizon is going to bring on younger cheaper labor just ahead of its rollout of 5G...we'll see how that plays out. Also it sounds like 44k people were offered the voluntary severance package and 10k accepted...almost 1/3 of the organization was offered a VSP? Insane: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/WynLh8d#replies https://www.thelayoff.com/t/WynLh8d#replies
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- paul7986 8y agoSo are they going all 5G for residential Fios broadband ... offering FIOs nationally over 5G? For consumers that would be great and I’m sure other carriers would follow. If they do Comcast will suffer and millions of consumers will have a choice of residential broadband vs. only one player. Thus I wonder if these job cuts are happening mostly in their wireline business that’s unionized?
- tracker1 8y agoI'm not entirely sure... Wireless is shared bandwidth and fairly constrained, even with 5G tech. Interference is another huge issue if they tried. It would be somewhat nice for more rural areas where broadband feels like it's stuck in the late 90's (even in areas not so rural). It's also worth noting that Verizon is also the most expensive wireless carrier out there by a pretty good margin. I only use them because when I'm on road trips, they're often the only provider I get signal with. If I were just in town, I'd probably switch to a lower cost carrier, and rely on wifi more.
- cpr 8y agoA bit off-topic, but is 5G really the deadly killer that the conspiracy boards are bantering about?
- sonnyblarney 8y agoThe cuts are voluntary, and people are getting 1 years salary out of it. I suggest a lot of people are more than happy to take it in a good job market. That people are making the choice - and many don't seem to mind doing it, makes this quite a different thing than a regular layoff. Apparently churn has been high, and people leaving their jobs voluntarily is in some ways a good sign for the economy. They certainly don't do that when times are bad.