Verizon’s layoffs include 500 corporate employees
Verizon Communications said Thursday it will lay off about 3,000 workers and sell 274 company-owned retail stores to franchise owners, according to a company spokesman. The move reduces the company’s retail footprint for the second time in less than a year.
Most of the layoffs are tied to the store divestiture, but the total also includes roughly 500 corporate employees, people familiar with the matter said. Verizon will still own about 1,000 retail stores after the sale. Management has determined that the company needs a minimum of 1,000 corporate-owned stores for the next three years as part of its long-term strategy, according to an internal memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The company employed about 89,900 full-time workers at the end of 2025, according to its annual report.
The new round echoes a move Verizon took last fall, when it sold about 200 company-owned retail stores in conjunction with its largest-ever layoff. That round cut more than 13,000 jobs, bringing the company’s total workforce reductions over the past year to more than 16,000.