About six months after eliminating more than 13,000 positions in its largest-ever single round of layoffs, Verizon $VZ has confirmed a new wave of cuts totaling several hundred jobs across the country.
Without offering a precise figure, Verizon characterized the scope as under 1% of its global workforce, Business Insider reported. Smaller business units bear the brunt of the reductions, with Verizon's Basking Ridge, New Jersey campus seeing the heaviest impact.
"We're continuing to add head count to grow parts of the business that are growing while making targeted job reductions to portions of the business where this is needed," a Verizon spokesperson said in a statement.
At a time when many employers have pointed to AI as a rationale for headcount reductions, Verizon explicitly ruled out the technology as a factor in these cuts. Workers who lose their jobs can pursue any of the more than 1,000 U.S. roles currently listed on the company's careers page.
On last week's earnings call, CFO Anthony Skiadas described the company as operating with a leaner structure since the prior year's cuts and signaled that efficiency efforts would extend past 2026. During the same call, CEO Dan Schulman highlighted AI's growing footprint at Verizon, pointing to reductions in vendor support costs of up to 70% and a 40% gain in software code output.
When announcing the November 2024 cuts, Schulman characterized the scope as company-wide and said the savings would be redirected toward improving the customer experience.
Verizon's first-quarter 2026 results showed signs of a broader turnaround, with the company posting a net gain of 55,000 postpaid phone subscribers — its first positive first-quarter performance on that metric since 2013. Adjusted earnings per share reached $1.28, up 7.6% from a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA grew 6.7% to $13.4 billion, which Verizon said was the highest quarterly figure in company history. The company also raised its full-year subscriber and earnings outlooks.
Schulman, who took the CEO role in October, has pursued a cost-reduction strategy alongside efforts to streamline customer offerings. The acquisition of fiber internet provider Frontier closed earlier this year, with its financial results consolidated into Verizon's figures beginning Jan. 20.