Internal memo: Verizon CEO Dan Schulman says the company will begin notifying the 13,000+ employees impacted by its largest-ever round of layoffs
New CEO launches company's largest-ever round of cuts and says Verizon must reorient around ‘delighting’ customers
Context & Ripple Effects
The notifications operationalize the workforce reset outlined a week earlier, when Verizon was reported to be planning its largest reduction and a shift of roughly 200 stores to franchise operations. The move follows Dan Schulman’s appointment as CEO, making the cuts an early, concrete test of his mandate.
Verizon has used workforce actions before, including a 2018 voluntary-severance program accepted by more than 10,000 employees. This round is framed less as a standalone cost measure than as part of reshaping how the company serves customers.
First-order effects
- More than 13,000 Verizon employees will enter the notification process, turning the previously reported restructuring plan into an immediate workforce and operational transition.
- Schulman and Verizon’s operating leaders must deliver the cuts while making the promised customer-service reorientation visible to remaining staff and customers.
Second-order effects
- The combination of a smaller direct workforce and the previously reported store-franchising plan shifts more execution responsibility toward franchise operators, raising the importance of consistent retail and service standards.
- Workforce reductions can free resources for customer-facing priorities, but service disruptions or weaker retention during the transition would directly challenge the rationale management has given for the move.
Third-order effects
- If Verizon sustains the approach, the company’s consumer operation could become more reliant on a leaner corporate workforce and partner-run retail distribution rather than company-operated scale.
- The broader signal is that leadership changes at mature telecom operators are increasingly paired with operating-model resets; whether these improve customer outcomes, rather than only reduce costs, will determine their durability.
The trend: Large incumbent telecoms are linking cost restructurings to customer-experience mandates, using leadership transitions to reconsider staffing and retail operating models.