from Hacker News

Verizon says to shed 10,400 jobs by mid next year

by crunchlibrarian on 12/10/18, 4:28 PM with 193 comments

• by 2bitencryption on 12/10/18, 5:55 PM

  > 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.

• by roymurdock on 12/10/18, 6:28 PM

  Judging 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

• by sct202 on 12/10/18, 5:21 PM

  I 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.

• by sonnyblarney on 12/10/18, 10:59 PM

  The 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.

• by porpoisely on 12/10/18, 6:01 PM

  I 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?

• by yuy910616 on 12/10/18, 5:55 PM

  wait a sec...i read it's 44,000 like a few days ago.

  https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/05/verizon...

• by throwaway5752 on 12/10/18, 5:04 PM

  That is 10,400 out of 152,300 per the article, or just a bit less than 7% of their workforce.

• by taurath on 12/10/18, 5:22 PM

  So.. 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?

• by bogomipz on 12/10/18, 6:13 PM

  So 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?

• by paul7986 on 12/10/18, 6:36 PM

  So 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?

• by padseeker on 12/10/18, 5:45 PM

  I'm so glad we passed those corporate tax cuts that created all those jobs and helped provide for all those raises everyone got....

• by kanox on 12/10/18, 5:57 PM

  Also tumblr?

• by cpr on 12/10/18, 8:09 PM

  A bit off-topic, but is 5G really the deadly killer that the conspiracy boards are bantering about?

• by mlthoughts2018 on 12/10/18, 5:24 PM

  At 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.

• by TAForObvReasons on 12/10/18, 5:05 PM

  They 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-pl...