Verizon to consolidate regional operations and slash jobs as a result

Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) plans to cut management positions as it consolidates its regional offices to speed up decision-making and get employees closer to customers. However, it's unclear how many layoffs will come as a result of the changes.

According to Blomberg, Verizon told employees yesterday that it will reorganize its wireless operations. Verizon will cut the number of its 20 regional offices down to six, Verizon spokesman Jim Gerace told Bloomberg. Gerace said some jobs will be cut though declined to say how many.

Verizon will cut management positions but said sales and retail store employees won't be affected by the changes. "We are constantly working to evolve our operations to best support our customers' changing needs," Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson told FierceWireless.

This isn't the first time Verizon has reduced the number of its regional offices to reduce organizational complexity. However, the new changes come as Verizon has said its full-year 2016 earnings may plateau at 2015 levels as the company manages "near-term impacts." Those include the shift away from subsidized smartphones and toward equipment installment plans (EIPs), year-over-year wireline financial comparisons following the expected first-half 2016 sale of some of its operations to Frontier Communications and the ramp up of new business models for wireless video and the Internet of Things.

Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo said on the company's third-quarter earnings conference call that as more customers choose the EIP model through the end of 2015 and into next year, its EBITDA will normalize and catch up with the accounting benefit that moving to EIP gave the company in 2015.

However, Verizon is not the only carrier contemplating job cuts. Sprint (NYSE: S) is cutting severance pay in half for employees notified after Jan. 30, 2016, that they will be laid off. Sprint plans to cut up to $2.5 billion in expenses over the next six months and has said it plans to lay off more employees but has not said how many or when the job cuts will come. 

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article

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