Verizon’s 10,400 employees leave the company as part of voluntary separation program

Telecom giant Verizon Communications (VZ) announced that about 10,400 employees had accepted to leave the company as part of its voluntary separation program.

The employees who had accepted the offer, which was announced in September with a target of saving $10 billion in cash by 2021, will get up to 60 weeks’ salary, bonus and benefits, depending on their service duration. The company had 152,300 employees at the end of third-quarter 2018.

“For those who were accepted, the coming weeks and months will be a transition. For the entire V Team, there will be opportunities to work differently as we prepare for the great things to come at Verizon,” said CEO Hans Vestberg.

Verizon plans to revamp its units: Oath becomes separate segment

Early in November, Verizon realigned its business segments to Consumer, Business and Verizon Media Group/Oath, which will come into effect from the beginning of January. Verizon will start reporting under the new structure during Q2 2019.

During the third quarter earnings conference call, the management had commented that the company will reveal the details about the voluntary separation program in the fourth quarter and it will get to know about the size of the benefits in 2019.

In October, Verizon confirmed that it had offered 44,000 employees voluntary severance packages. Telecom giants like AT&T (T) and Verizon are trying to cut their costs and plans to invest the saved money in upgrading to 5G networks from next year onwards.

Verizon shares were down about 2% after two hours of trading on Monday. The stock had gained 5% in the last three months and 11% in the past one year.

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