Moves seen as major effort to cut employee rolls, particularly US-based.

September 25, 2018

2 Min Read
Verizon Outsources IT, Offers Sweetened Buyout

Verizon is offering sweetened buyouts to thousands of employees, including its entire management, in hopes of trimming its labor force significantly, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The new report comes a day after Verizon announced a $700 million IT outsourcing deal with India-based Infosys.

The early retirement program is the first that Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) has offered in 13 years, according to the WSJ. The program offers three weeks of severance pay for every year worked, clearly targeting long-time staff.

Front-line sales staffers are excluded from the offer but other line staff as well as management are being targeted, the report says.

According to TheLayoff.com, Verizon employees are speculating that IT employees who don't retire early could find themselves transitioned to Infosys almost immediately. There is further speculation on that site that the primary job of those employees for the coming year will be to train Indian-based counterparts, who will then replace them at a lower cost.

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Like all network operators, Verizon is under pressure to lower its operating costs. A significant part of that is continuing to shed higher-paid employees, replacing them with automated processes or outsourced deals.

Verizon did reach an agreement in midsummer with the Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on a deal that covered 34,000 call center, Central Office and field technicians.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading

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