Associated Press
NEW YORK — Verizon Communications, the long-distance and local telephone carrier, is offering voluntary buyouts to employees, a spokesman said, in hopes of cutting its workforce by thousands of positions.
Verizon, which has its Northwest headquarters in Everett, employs an estimated 1,800 people in Snohomish County.
"The economy and the competition we’re facing means less work to do," said Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe. "The plan is to offer the buyout, see how many employees want to leave early, then see where we are. It’s the kind of thing investors expect us to be doing."
Rabe said the buyouts would amount to "a few percent" of the company’s nearly 256,000 employees. A company spokeswoman in Everett said the local impact of the buyouts was not yet known.
Although it has laid off a "few hundred" managers, Verizon is not yet considering layoffs among its union employees, Rabe said.
The company has already cut its workforce by 7,000 to 8,000 jobs by offering voluntary departure packages, Rabe said.
It has also cut back on overtime, eliminated contractors and offered early retirements, that, taken together with the buyouts, have saved Verizon the equivalent of a job force reduction of 20,000 employees.
The current spate of offers is being made to rank-and-file employees who agree to leave by the end of the year. Some offers are being made to managers as well, Rabe said.
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