Verizon to Hand Out Over 8,000 Pink Slips

Posted 07/28/2009 at 6:30am | by Paul Lilly

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Verizon on Monday said it plans to cut more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs before the end of the year in the wireline business, which it hopes will speed up efforts to keep costs in line, according to chief financial officer John Killian. But unlike in recent years, the company has no plans of offsetting the wireline layoffs with hiring in its wireless business.

"We probably will not have large-scale hiring until we're out of the recession," said Denny Strigl, Verizon's Chief Operating Officer.

The news comes after the nation's largest wireless carrier reported a 21 percent drop in second-quarter profit, although the company's earnings did creep slightly higher than Wall Street expectations. Verizon earned $1.48 billion, or 52 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30, down from $1.88 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $26.86 billion from $24.1 billion a year ago, which is what Wall Street had expected. Much of that increase can be attributed to the purchase of Alltel in January, otherwise revenue would have only increased 1.9 percent.

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