Verizon’s new goal of slashing 8,000 jobs nationwide by the end of the year doesn’t mean mass layoffs at its Everett location, a company spokesman said Monday.
Cost-cutting at Verizon Communications Inc.’s landline business failed to keep pace with falling revenues as the nation’s largest wireless carrier reported a 21 percent drop in second-quarter profit. The company said Monday it will cut more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs before the end of the year in the landline business, speeding up its efforts to keep costs in line, said Chief Financial Officer John Killian.
In recent years, Verizon has balanced layoffs in landline, also called “wireline,” with hiring in wireless, but Chief Operating Officer Denny Strigl said that would not be the case this time.
Still, the number of employees in the Northwest who will be laid off is minimal, said Jon Davies, a spokesman for Verizon in the region.
In May, Verizon announced that it will sell its phone lines in Washington and 13 other states to Frontier Communications. The company committed a large number of its employees in the Snohomish County area to Frontier as part of that sale agreement, said Kevin Laverty, Verizon spokesman.
But Verizon has offered buyouts in certain areas nationwide. Some Everett-area employees have opted to take a severance package since many of those employees are approaching retirement age, Laverty said. He did not disclose the number of severance packages taken by area workers.
Verizon does employ contractors in the region. Laverty expects that some of those contractors could be terminated as part of the company’s latest effort to reduce its work force.
Nationwide, Verizon ended the quarter with 235,000 employees, up from 229,000 a year ago, despite already cutting 8,000 jobs during the year. Contractor jobs are not included in those totals.
Verizon earned $1.48 billion, or 52 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30. That’s down from $1.88 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding special items, mainly for job cuts, New York-based Verizon says it earned 63 cents per share, beating by a penny the average analyst forecast as polled by Thomson Reuters.
On a conference call, Strigl told investors and analysts that he expects Verizon Wireless to stay competitive by introducing new phones, including a second version of the BlackBerry Storm and devices from Motorola Inc. running Google Inc.’s Android software.
Wireless is the main growth driver at Verizon Communications, but its results are hamstrung by the fact that it doesn’t fully own the wireless unit. Strigl said Verizon Wireless will have its next-generation broadband network, using airwaves newly freed up from TV stations, up and running in Seattle and Boston before the end of the year. Next year, 30 more markets will follow, and the national buildout is to be completed in 2013.
On the wireline side, which includes Verizon’s local phone operations, services for businesses and governments, and long-haul wholesale traffic, the operating margin declined to 4.8 percent from 8.8 percent.
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