Verizon to Shed More Than 10,000 Workers in Voluntary Separation Program

By Bowdeya Tweh

Verizon Communications Inc. will shed about 10,400 workers who have accepted a severance package as the largest U.S. wireless carrier by subscribers works to cut $10 billion in costs and upgrade to a faster 5G network.

Chief Executive Hans Vestberg said in a memo to employees Monday that the number of employees who were granted the packages represented more than 90% of the staff who volunteered.

"While there were no specific targets in place, the objective was to accept as many eligible volunteers as possible," he wrote in the memo seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The program offers as many as 60 weeks of salary, bonuses and benefits, based on an employee's length of service, the company said.

The company had made offers to roughly 44,000 employees, the Wall Street Journal reported in October.

The pool of employees set to depart includes some information-technology workers as well as management employees, a spokesman for Verizon said.

A group of about 1,000 U.S. IT workers in September were initially told that they would be transferred to outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd. without the option of a separation package but were later offered the same deal as the initial pool of management employees.

Verizon said it notified employees on Monday whether they were accepted into the program. Employees will exit their roles on Dec. 31, March 31, or June 30, the company said.

The New York-based company had 152,300 employees as of Sept. 30.

--Sarah Krouse contributed to this article.

Write to Bowdeya Tweh at Bowdeya.Tweh@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 10, 2018 11:39 ET (16:39 GMT)

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