Verizon says to shed 10,400 jobs by mid next year
reuters.com> The New York-based company has been looking at cutting costs as it ramps up investment in its next generation 5G network, which is expected to fuel growth.
"we're about to grow a ton, better cut 10k jobs to maximize those gains."
that just sounds so... weird to me.
The company is laying off 10,400 employees. According to the article: The company said it had 152,300 employees at the end of the third-quarter ending Sept. 30.
That's a significant chunk of their workforce! I suspect Verizon will quietly be hiring thousands of people from places where they can legally pay them less than these 10+ thousand.
That's pretty much the modus operandi of every telco around the World.
The working conditions in call-centers or guys doing installation & maintenance tend to be absolutely horrendous across the board.
Contractors. With crappy benefits and less oversight. As long as terrible employment practices are "out of sight and mind" then it's OK for Verizon's board and management. Bonuses all around for getting the job done for cheaper!!
Yeah you are probably right, these 10,000 can probably be outsourced.
> "we're about to grow a ton, better cut 10k jobs to maximize those gains."
It makes perfect sense. T-Mobile basically bought up all the spectrum in the last round of bidding because they got a $4B breakup fee from AT&T as part of AT&T's failed acquisition. That has put all the other U.S. carriers on the defensive, because if they can't win a significant percentage of the 5G spectrum then they're going to be out of business.
Wait, Verizon doesn't have access to $4B? Verizon surely has significantly more net income than Tmobile. And therefore also has access to more leverage. $4B would not make that big of a difference.
Verizon makes about $4 B in quarterly net income, but they only have about $2 B cash on hand and have investors who expect a $2.4 B dividend each quarter.
So yeah, this is a hard purchase for them, especially since they also have $209 B in liabilities already.
No way. You don't miss out on 5G because you couldn't come up with $4B and your smaller competitor could. If it were $40B, sure.
That's definitely correct, $4 billion is meaningless. If it were $40b to corner 5G, Verizon and AT&T could come up with it and T-Mobile couldn't.
For significant business purposes, both Verizon and AT&T could borrow $40b easily. Whether for an acquisition or critical spectrum buy. They both have plenty of borrowing capacity despite being highly leveraged (it'll very likely end badly one day in the future).
As I understand it(as of last year)...T-Mobile's "5G" is radically different than ATT/Verizons. The former using low band for coverage and penetration, and the latter using high band cell sites. So one has greater reach at the risk of congestion, and the other will have much less congestion but little reach. Which is better is to be seen...
I assume it's just their way of working "5G" buzzword into every press release.
It doesn't say what growth – perhaps it's revenue growth, but my interpretation would be network/bandwidth/user/devices growth. The unfortunate thing with these huge service providers is that the number of people they staff to operate their infrastructure grows in conjunction with their network/bandwidth growth. Their operations simply doesn't scale as compared to the web-players who manage their global network with 10-20 people. Cutting costs and automating is something that is long overdue at these companies, and will be imperative when moving to mass-scale 5G networks. I'm not so sure the gains are to be "maximized" as you say, I think actually being able to make a profit will be hard enough in the coming years.
A businesses’s goal isn’t to increase expenses.
The need to hire a UI team for their tv gui. Comcast, of all companies, has out-innovated them in this area.
Judging by the posts on this layoff board, most of the layoffs are older, more expensive folk, so it seems like Verizon is going to bring on younger cheaper labor just ahead of its rollout of 5G...we'll see how that plays out. Also it sounds like 44k people were offered the voluntary severance package and 10k accepted...almost 1/3 of the organization was offered a VSP? Insane:
I read on the Layoff they had about 11.4k applicants, and 90% of them were accepted. Looks like the first wave is out starting Dec 28th.
With such a large cut it would be weird to be rejected, I would feel an awkward mix of jealousy and loss to go back to work afterwards.
With those kind of hiring numbers and lay offs, it seems to me that they had senior employees train younger, less expensive (in salary and medical cost) replacements and then lay off the older, more expensive workers. Less vacation time, less pay, less family headache, less everything. It's a win/win for Verizon. It's been done time and time again. I'm not sure why everyone's arguing Repubs and Dems above, other than they just like to do it =/. They do this stuff in blue and red states. They do it here in WA, just like they did it in NC when I lived there, too. It sucked every time they did it and every where they did it.
Oracle does this almost 3x per year.
It took senior people making 90-120 base and laid them off to employ (me and others) at 47-60k base salary in Massachusetts.
Then after 3 years, they laid us college kids off to employ even lower paid fresh graduates in Austin and San Antonio, because Texas cut them an even better deal than MA did I believe.
When British Telecom did this one of the top complaints to the union was "they wont let me go".
Anecdotally for key skills "radio planners" competitors where known to ask what your redundancy payment would be and offer a golden hello to match an dwe are talking > £100,000 15 years ago
As someone who volunteered and wasn’t cut... it’s a mighty weird rejection.
Sounds to me like the rejection is a tacit admission by the company that you're too valuable to lose.
That would be a fantastic way to ask for a raise.
No, they would just tell you that you're lucky to still have a job. Even if they gave you a raise, you just increase your chances of being a layoff target since you cost the company more now. If you are saved from a massive layoff like that, you seriously need to find something new because you are next on the chopping block no matter what.
> Even if they gave you a raise, you just increase your chances of being a layoff target
But if you applied for a layoff and didn't get it, isn't that exactly what you want? And in the meantime you get to make more. It's a win-win!
It actually isn't. Often the voluntary separation offers the most severance or is close to it. Everyone left now has a ton more work to do while being paid the same and knowing that you won't be getting a raise or bonus. Everyone is waiting for the next round of layoffs. You also need to be careful that you don't make a mistake that would allow the company to fire you without offering a severance (I know one person who grabbed something from a late-night cafeteria and forgot to pay for it and was promptly fired the next day).
Amen, and worth reiterating.
From what I've heard from amigos working for big ISPs, you can often get 3-6 months of salary, and if you have decent skills (i.e. you've got job options) then it's often a paid vacation while you shop around for other gigs.
Meanwhile if you stay you know there is great acrimony ahead, big changes, lots of clueless newbies coming in, and potentially a crazy-high workload until the dust finally settles.
Why stick around when you can chill for a month, burn one-hitters until your homie at CenturyLink hooks it up, and bone up on certs or skills.
Best to get off of a sinking ship early, since that's when the biggest lifeboats are available.
The people who are left have to do more work and are less likely to get nice severance packages during the next round.
I don't understand how a company can think like this with unemployment as low as it is. They don't have much room to be calling labor's bluffs.
Healthcare + low skilled, low wage jobs (EMS, manufacturing, parcel delivery, warehouse work) are taking a lot of slack out of the employment market
Check out where job gains in the US were in November: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
Healthcare added +32k jobs, the majority of which were ambulance drivers/EMS jobs
Manufacturing added +27k jobs, mainly in chemicals and heavy metals
Transportation and warehousing added + 25k jobs, mainly in package delivery and warehouse work
Business services added +32k jobs
All other sectors remained largely unchanged
I don't think a 50YO radio engineer at Verizon is going to be happy retraining to be an EMS or package delivery courier. Labor, especially older and higher paid (non management) positions, is not in the best position right now despite the record low unemployment rate
Not really, they might just say no. If you really want a raise you need a competing offer or a clear market value indicator.
My thoughts exactly.
Wouldn't it be a compliment of sorts to be determined too valuable to be let go?
I've been there, it's not really a good feeling since the remaining pressure can be burdensome depending on how much your company cuts.
"You're too valuable to let go! Best yet is you don't have all those pesky coworkers!"
Whatever leftover slop the company feeds you from the remains of your coworkers won't have that satisfying flavor.
Depends on the terms I know a lot in the UK who did this got a massive taxfree redundancy payment - then went to work for a competitor or went freelance my old boss went back to fixing COBOL
What I have realized is that in such companies your importance to a company is only as much as the next project. When project agendas changes, next time might be your turn. So take it as a warning to find a better place soon as possible.
An acquantance was offered this. he was offered 2 years salery upfront. after the end date, it reverts back to 1 year salary.
The cuts are voluntary, and people are getting 1 years salary out of it. I suggest a lot of people are more than happy to take it in a good job market.
That people are making the choice - and many don't seem to mind doing it, makes this quite a different thing than a regular layoff.
Apparently churn has been high, and people leaving their jobs voluntarily is in some ways a good sign for the economy. They certainly don't do that when times are bad.
I guess their fios price increases the past few years isn't going to their workforce. Does this mean they are done increasing the price for a while now?
wait a sec...i read it's 44,000 like a few days ago.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/05/verizon...
That is 10,400 out of 152,300 per the article, or just a bit less than 7% of their workforce.
I never realized how large they were
So.. they finished laying the groundwork for their 5g network, and now they won’t need 7% of their workforce until 6g starts to go in 6-10 years?
Every ISP in the world is shedding employees. Every generation the network gets more digitized, more virtualised and you simply need less people to maintain and update it.
So they're offsetting the Capex of their 5G rollout by eliminating employees that helped make Verizon 3G and 4G rollouts a success and the company a ton of cash? That seems like a pretty bad precedent if so.
Also why would a brand new network deployment require any less head count? I assume they will just hire new workers when the uptake in 5G begins in earnest?
I assume they will just hire new workers when the uptake in 5G begins in earnest?
Probably at lower wages to boot.
So are they going all 5G for residential Fios broadband ... offering FIOs nationally over 5G?
For consumers that would be great and I’m sure other carriers would follow. If they do Comcast will suffer and millions of consumers will have a choice of residential broadband vs. only one player.
Thus I wonder if these job cuts are happening mostly in their wireline business that’s unionized?
I'm not entirely sure... Wireless is shared bandwidth and fairly constrained, even with 5G tech. Interference is another huge issue if they tried. It would be somewhat nice for more rural areas where broadband feels like it's stuck in the late 90's (even in areas not so rural).
It's also worth noting that Verizon is also the most expensive wireless carrier out there by a pretty good margin. I only use them because when I'm on road trips, they're often the only provider I get signal with. If I were just in town, I'd probably switch to a lower cost carrier, and rely on wifi more.
I'm so glad we passed those corporate tax cuts that created all those jobs and helped provide for all those raises everyone got....
Politically, I agree with you, but your comment is akin to when republicans blast global warming when a snow storm blows in. Pointing to a single data point as a summary of something super complex is always silly.
It's comments like this that keep me coming back to Hacker News. I sometimes find myself in political discussions with people and feel that they aren't playing fair for whatever reason (fair in the sense of good natured truth-seeking). Your counter-example is the perfect, non-snarky retort.
Argumentum ad populum or ad numerum, it's always good to keep an eye for them!
That's a fair criticism. One wave of layoffs does not constitute evidence that the tax cuts are a failure.
Still the economy is going in an upward direction, and Verizon isn't shrinking. Why are they laying off 10K people?
Verizon has seen zero revenue growth since something like 2012 or 2013. 7% employee cut, against a 12%-14% inflation erosion of their business. Everything they've done over that time has been to just stand still while T-Mobile eats their market out from under them.
In a more practical consideration, they're very likely going to need less people going forward because they're going to keep losing market share to a more nimble competitor. They'd be the last to admit that of course.
They're the most expensive carrier in a highly competitive market that will likely get more so in the next 3-5 years.
A rising economy can't compensate for stupid executive decisions.
Are Republics a homogenous whole, none of whom take climate change seriously?
Of course not, but invoking cold weather as a way of casting doubt on global warming is not a popular rhetorical tactic except among American conservatives (republicans).
Today, everyone is in a group, and if that group is not your group, the other group is bad.
Today? Did you mean literally the entire history of humanity?
Full-time employment is up by 2.7 million since the tax cuts went into effect.
Michigan's unemployment is the lowest it's been since records have been kept: https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/21325
Unemployment rates have been hitting lows ever since the recession: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/unemployment-rate-rose-to-...
Correlation does not imply causation. Can you provide evidence tax cuts stoked existing economic momentum? Or is the economy on fire despite these tax cuts?
Stock buybacks [1] done with these tax cuts, enriching shareholders, does little to stoke economic demand or benefit the middle class [2]. More likely, cheap, loose credit is what has allowed the music to carry on.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-re... (Tax cut triggers $437 billion explosion of stock buybacks)
[2] https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/charts-see-how-much... (CHARTS: See How Much Of GOP Tax Cuts Will Go To The Middle Class)
Why aren't you asking this of all the comments in this parent? People seem to be blaming Verizon cutting 10,000 jobs on the tax cuts. Or claiming that jobs weren't created. Or that somehow the tax cuts were an economic negative. None of those things can be attributed to causation.
People seem to be blaming Verizon cutting 10,000 jobs on the tax cuts
At no point was that ever insinuated. The simple idea is that the tax cuts were sold as a way to give companies financial resources to boost salaries and hire new people. Well they got their tax cuts, why are they doing the opposite of what the tax cuts were supposed to do?
Maybe it's because the tax cuts were never going to boost salaries and increase hiring. You have to be pretty deluded to come to the conclusion my comment was blaming the layoffs on the tax cuts.
> At no point was that ever insinuated.
This is the parent comment, in its entirety:
> I'm so glad we passed those corporate tax cuts that created all those jobs and helped provide for all those raises everyone got....
If that doesn't count as insinuation, then nothing does.
> At no point was that ever insinuated.
Then when is the meaning of the parent comment?
> why are they doing the opposite of what the tax cuts were supposed to do?
I'm curious what news you're reading or consuming.
Wages are up 3.1% YoY (biggest increase in 10 years) and unemployment lowest since 1969: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/wages-and-salaries-jump-by-3...
2.7 Million more full-time jobs since January 1, when the tax cuts went into effect.
>Wages are up 3.1% YoY
>Real average hourly earnings increased 0.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, from October 2017 to October 2018.
> At no point was that ever insinuated
Are you serious man? Why be so dishonest? It's clear as day that that's what you were insinuating. Why lie like this?
> Why aren't you asking this of all the comments in this parent?
I don't need to ask everyone in the thread, polluting the thread. I'm asking why you have made several statements in this thread insinuating the corporate tax cut has benefited the economy, with no evidence. My comment includes citations. Bring data, not feelings or unsubstantiated opinions.
I was simply providing numbers as a counterbalance to those that were weirdly lamenting that the tax cuts are responsible for job cuts, similarly without evidence.
Tax cuts were sold to the American people as something that would bolster jobs. Clearly, that has not been the case (GM = 15k job cuts, Ford = upwards of 25k job cuts, Verizon = 10k job cuts).
It is not a weird lament; it is calling out the lies of trickle down economics.
"Stock buybacks done with these tax cuts, enriching shareholders, does little to stoke economic demand."
Stock buybacks don't 'enrich' anyone. Money that is owned by investors goes from 'inside the company' to 'outside' and it 's superficially a net neutral transaction.
What those buy backs do do however is free up capital to be used in more intelligent ways than can be used by the single entity, in this case Verizon, who may not have any great ways to invest it.
Tax cuts probably have not directly affected companies just yet, but the signalling value of it, and that Trump is believed to be a 'pro business' guy (minus trade wars) is at least partly buyoing the economy by providing a dose of faith.
Though stocks are staggering a little because there's fear of no more upside ... there's no real fear yet as no reason for anything to burst. Though a major China trade war - or - a serious setback in China could make a serious correction.
I think the trade war with China was inevitable. Not to say the U.S. doesn't or hasn't used state resources to bolster business, China does it to an extent that no other country has or could. Given the U.S. labor market and cost of said labor by comparison, it's about the only way to even attempt preserving that pool.
Yes it will make things more expensive, it will probably also cycle a faster upswing in demands for higher pay (also well overdue). But things will balance out in the end. My larger hope is to see some of the more overt corporatism recede quite a bit. Particularly IP terms and reform.
The US has been in a 'trade war' with China since the 1980s.
But it's been a 'frog in warming to boiling water' type scenario.
By that I mean - the protectionism, corruption, IP theft etc. has been going on forever - it's just that we didn't care.
Actually - we didn't mind - because a backwards mess of a poor economy might want to do 'whatever it takes' to move forward.
Everyone (well most) was very happy to see China come out of the doldrums. It's better for everyone, generally.
But now that they are reaching for advanced economy status ... the 'issues' become ever more apparent.
I don't like Trump one bit, I find him kind of nauseating in his demeanor - and - I'm not even sure his manner of approach to the 'war' is right.
BUT - 100% of politicians are otherwise incapable of standing up to China. Ironically, it just mike take a loose-cannon douche-bag to do it.
'The West' speaks with 1000 voices: CEOs, NGO leaders, politicians, bureaucrats, federal/state, different countries within federal entities (i.e. EU), heads of Universities, research establishments.
China speaks with 'one voice' and they have a plan, which can actually be carried out.
So if anyone tries to stand up to them, China can scare that 'little individual' with all sorts of things, and by 'little individual' I even mean heads of state.
But ironically, in totality, Western powers do have the upper hand, both because of the direction of trade, but also because of the size of economies, sophistication, all sorts of other reasons.
Example: Trudeau in Canada will mollify Chinese and would be afraid to do anything because China could threaten to not buy Canadian commodities. But here's the thing: they are commodities! So if China stops buying hardwood from B.C. and starts buying it from elsewhere, then as prices receded in Canada and prices increase 'elsewhere' - other buyers come to B.C. for hardwood.
China buying a commodity is like them scooping water out of a river -> it doesn't matter who buys what, the aggregate demand is the same.
But the interim calamity and fear from China walking away will push Canadian CEO's to make Trudeau cede whatever to China.
As an example.
NPR just had an interview with the Robert Lighthizer [1] who talks about the fact China has been saying they'll 'do things' on IP for over 20 years but they've done nothing really. These talks are the first time basically ever that the US is speaking with credibility in terms of actual response/retaliation.
I suggest the Chinese are just waiting for Trump to be out of office, or to give him something political to show for it, and then going back to normal. I would be ideal if the US political org. got together with the EU, Japan, S. Korea, India and Australia ... and made a coordinated, long term effort on these issues. It would actually be better for everyone - even the Chinese, in the long term.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2018/12/07/674730823/u-s-trade-represent...
There is a case to be made that things were going well enough based on the previous economic momentum from pent up demand. That pent up demand was based on all the cost cutting based on economic catastrophe from 2008.
Even if you believe the tax cuts have had some positive effect on the economy, every legitimate economics professional and reality based think tank said that in order for the tax cuts to pay for themselves growth has to be 6%. Last time I looked it was 4.5%. These tax cuts won't pay for themselves. And the austerity we're in store for when the economy takes a down turn, which is inevitable, will be quite painful.
Hey remember when conservatives used to advocate for fiscal responsibility and balancing the budget? That's only for when Democrats are in charge. It's all an excuse to throw poor people under the bus.
Sounds like empty political rhetoric and speculation. FTA: Verizon is "cutting costs as it ramps up investment in its next generation 5G network" Maybe that will mean future jobs in other areas. Maybe the people they're buying equipment from/contracting to will add more jobs. The bottom line is how do you really know?
Maybe they’ve discovered a unicorn. Maybe they have a fusion powered internet. How do you really know? Bottom line is we know labor is getting screwed. The rest is marketing.
Sounds like empty political rhetoric and speculation.
That's exactly what it is...which is why it is currently the top comment. HN never disappoints.
Did you expect zero layoffs across the United States for the next ten years after the tax cuts?
Tax cuts aren't even a year old and were sold on the premise of job growth.
Are you claiming that there hasn't been any job growth since January 1?
Not more than pre-tax cut trend. The critique was always that companies aren't hurting for cash so a tax cut is pointless and will only balloon the deficit. That's exactly what has happened. We gained nothing but a shorter debt bomb fuse.
Outside of the normal trend, yeah. There isn't much growth difference than pre-tax treatment.
The national deficit is the highest it's been since the recession though, and growing faster than before.
At least during the recession when our tax money was given to corporations, there were strings attached. Now it's all stock buybacks to fight the shrinking market, brought on by the stupid trade war.
Which is being achieved if you look at the overall numbers. One company doesn't represent total job growth. If GM fails and Tesla takes its place will you blame that on Trump too?
Two companies in two weeks have announced 10,000+ layoffs. Rumor is Ford is about to as well.
So what? Far more new jobs than that have been created.
Announcing huge layoffs is not a positive market indicator. Similar to inverted yields, massive market drops or VIX growth, it is indicative of a wind shift.
Interesting observation that both companies have strong unions.
It's too early to imply a reliable correlation (not even mentioning causation), but surely something to watch after...
There are several integer values between 0 and 10400.
The article's headline and its content paint different pictures, with the title really just being clickbait. They're not laying off individuals but paying them to leave including upwards of a year of salary, a bonus, and maintaining benefits. And it was voluntary -- not 'pink slipping.'
I don't really think you can attribute this to the tax breaks, but if you can - then this would be an immense positive. Employee turnover is already very high pretty much everywhere now a days. Getting paid a year of salary, and more, to agree to leave? That's something I think the vast majority of workers would be absolutely thrilled to be offered. It's a potentially life changing offer giving somebody a chance to carry out any entrepreneurial fantasy they have, to get a fat head start on the joy of compound interest, or simply spending a year with bikinis, booze, and beaches if that's your thing.
If they don’t get enough employees to voluntarily leave, you can be sure that there will be forced layoffs (with probably worse terms).
Imagine you’re a 50 year old employee with a kid in college. Would you be thrilled to accept a year of salary with limited job prospects? What jobs do you think will be the first to be cut?
Don’t try to sugar coat it - when there are lay-offs (voluntarily or not), it’s rarely a positive for the majority of affected employees. And this in no way should be considered a positive effect of the corporate tax cuts.
Here's a more reasonable question. If you ask 10,000 random workers from various tech companies if they'd be willing to leave in exchange for more than a year of salary, + benefits, + a bonus. What percent would say yes? We can only imagine, but it's going to be huge.
If you don't want to leave, don't apply. And on that note - yeah people did have to apply, and some were rejected.
You’re presuming that those workers have good prospects for finding a new job as good as the one they currently have. This is harder when you are older.
It’s either take the money now, or if they don’t get enough takers be laid off without as much if any incentive later on.
Cutting taxes and increasing government spending trivially increases employment and wages. These people voluntarily accepted a buyout to get a better paying job elsewhere.
How does lowering costs to businesses result in layoffs? The tax cut has nothing to do with these layoffs. Were there not layoffs during the Obama administration?
If a company just announced they are hiring a bunch of people, does the tax credit get credit for that? Currently, the US has very low unemployment. Also, in December 2017, wage growth was at 2.9%, while now it has increased to 3.7%. So almost a full percentage point in less than a year. Is that because of the tax cut? It would be very difficult to say for sure, but one thing is clear from the data, the tax cut didn’t reduce wage growth.
I don't know how many times Republicans have to try these to understand it doesn't work.
It worked exactly as intended - to line their own pockets' and their buddies pockets. Mission accomplished, at the expense of the rest of us, again.
When campaign financing stops depending on them not understanding it.
They understand good god damn well they don't work. This is exactly the plan. Sell people on the idea it'll help them, then these companies take the money and run.
What amazes me is some working people will continue to vote this way even though it keeps failing. I guarantee there will be more tax cuts sold in the very near future, and the same people will buy into it. Some people never learn.
> Some people never learn
It's hard to learn when your sole source of news is Fox News.
It's not even that Fox News is an outlier, the fault is ad supported news media. What do you think will happen when a politician comes along that threatens the million dollar ad accounts from finance and health industries through policies that reduce those institutions influence? Chomsky was right (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent).
I would bet if you actually look another layer deep you'd find out it has nothing to do with "the media," ad-supported or not. I think you'd find a lot of people have little use for (and little interest in) the truth, and therefore voluntarily seek out a fun us-vs-them worldview with a group to hate (on both sides).
Cut revenue, blame expenses.
Eventually you end up with an anemic government that overspends on things that don't work and ignores all the social programs that the government put in place to prevent history from repeating.
I don't see the left looking to educate the public against Fox News in general. As long as Fox News controls the message, the uninformed will continue to vote against their best interests. If someone ran a FB campaign against Fox News, I'll donate.
And then they'll go after the entitlement programs saying it's not sustainable to fund them.
> take the money and run
its their money though. its the government taking the money.
They understand completely. These companies pay for their reelection and employ them once they leave politics.
Also tumblr?
A bit off-topic, but is 5G really the deadly killer that the conspiracy boards are bantering about?
At least the described severance benefit might be on the correct order of magnitude to be considered reasonable and not totally and odiously evil,
“As part of the separation program, the employees will get a salary of up to 60 weeks, bonus and benefits, depending on the length of their service, Verizon said.”
This is why I always advise people to negotiate significance severance benefits up front, on the order of 6 months for junior employees, a year + bonuses and continued benefits for experienced employees.
Companies absolutely agree to severance amounts like this, even for new grads, and sayingno to a company that won’t is just doing yourself a favor.
I'm pretty sure verizon has a union and their severance is negotiated by the union. At least that's what happened in my first union job. Anyone working for verizon can correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, which companies negotiate severance package before you are even hired? Especially as a new graduate? I've never heard of such thing as a software developer.
most (all? Idk) corporate office workers are not in the union. People who drive around putting boxes in peoples houses and climbing poles are in the union.
How many of these companies negotiate? Most jobs are take the offer or leave it. You need to be in a highly desired role or high up in management before you get companies willing to alter "contracts". That's especially true when they have roles they are hiring thousands for and do not want to deal with everyone haven't different deals
New grads in partner-track roles at client service firms, MBA types, private equity, etc, maybe. 22-year old John Doe getting a job at ERAC with a 2.9 GPA from a state school? Absolutely not.
Some places will certainly negotiate severance, but it's state and industry specific as well as very, very dependent on the position you're moving into.
No, I am specifically talking about junior devs in traditional tech & product companies.
One can come up with many horrible compensation functions that satisfy Verizons statement.comp(tenure) -> { (60 [weeks of salary, benefits]) * (tenure [weeks]) / (65 [years]), tenure < 65 60 [weeks of salary, benefits], tenure >= 65 }I think the fact that so many accepted the package means that it wasn't as bad as this.
If it's "up to" 60 weeks like they offer "up to X" internet speeds, then they're selling the best case but probably delivering half that.
I get you're trying to make a joke, but it's a weird criticism of Verizon specifically. Every FiOS circuit I've had over the last 15 years, except for some growing pains with gigabit, has tested at 10% over its rated speed. Verizon also has particularly generous compensation: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/business/verizon-workers-... (union members make $130,000 on average in salary and benefits).
I just got back from Thanksgiving visiting my folks in rural PA where Verizon DSL is the only so-called high speed option, and it barely worked. I often could not even load the speed test pages. They were getting far less (10-20%?) than advertised. I thought the joke was brilliant and apt.
Verizon DSL and Verizon FiOS are entirely different beasts. Your parents are likely right on the edge of DSL availability, where it starts to get really flaky.
Yes, but many times companies will pull unmitigated dick moves and give you 2 weeks, no benefits. By comparison, even 1/3 the stated number of weeks is decent (especially for junior employees).
Still, it’s a cautionary reninder to negotiate significant severance benefits.
How do you as a lowly employee "negotiate" severance benefits. You have no power. If they say "No" what are you going to do?
Just don’t accept that job if they say no. Look for a new job if your current one doesn’t offer this.
Good luck with that unless you're a special snowflake....
It’s just a basic part of average-case negotiations for most software jobs at a wide range of companies.
People like you, who don’t negotiate or turn down offers when they don’t include severance, unfortunately end up not getting benefits they could otherwise routinely get by negotiating and being willing to say no.
As a developer/architect in a major metropolitan city, why would I worry about getting laid off? In 20 years its never taken me more than three weeks to get another job - always paying more. My record was walking off a bad contract at lunch Monday with not even an application submitted somewhere, meeting a recruiter and having an offer at what was then a Fortune 10 company on Thursday. The only time I got laid off was when the company went under - meaning any promise of “severance” would have been moot. Even then I was laid off on Friday and scooped up by one of the company's clients and started working the next Monday.
Yes I was around for both the dotcom bust and the 2008 recession. Even then major corporations were hiring.
There is a much higher chance that I’m going to leave a company than a company is going to leave me. I’m going to negotiate pay, PTO, and even a title that looks good on my resume.
I went through a layoff once where my whole company department (about 30 people, mostly machine learning engineers with PhDs) was laid off in a big restructuring. We were all located in a major US city.
Several of my colleagues (one with two young children and a brand new mortgage) needed well over 6 months to find their next job. Few places were hiring for their skill area and _many_ companies passed on them just because having a resume gap from the layoff is an instant HR filter.
On top of this, paying for your own insurance even with COBRA is prohibitively expensive, like $600/month for an individual, upwards of $1500 for a family.
Some other teammates affected by that layoff faced really severe ageism during months of interviews before finding a job.
In other words, your comment is hopelessly myopic and I hope you never experience the kind of grim unemployment that many people face, even developers in job-heavy cities, because you don’t seem equipped to survive it.
I went through a layoff once where my whole company department (about 30 people, mostly machine learning engineers with PhDs) was laid off in a big restructuring. We were all located in a major US city.
The lay-off I did go through also involved about 30 people. This was in 2011. Everyone from developers, QA, L1 and L2 support staff had jobs lined up within a month. I suspect from the companies they went to had better jobs than they left.
Several of my colleagues (one with two young children and a brand new mortgage) needed well over 6 months to find their next job. Few places were hiring for their skill area and _many_ companies passed on them just because having a resume gap from the layoff is an instant HR filter.
This is why I focus my experience on two paths - one sort of specialized that offers better pay locally but where there are fewer jobs and the other where there are a lot of jobs/contracts but pay about average wages, ie. A bog standard generic full stack developer.
On top of this, paying for your own insurance even with COBRA is prohibitively expensive, like $600/month for an individual, upwards of $1500 for a family.
Life lesson I learned - don’t depend on CORBA. If the company goes out of business, their is no group plan to buy into. Even at full price. But yes, I thought about that. My wife has a secure government job and in a few years, will be guaranteed family health coverage for the rest of her life.
On top of this, paying for your own insurance even with COBRA is prohibitively expensive, like $600/month for an individual, upwards of $1500 for a family.
Ageism is overblown. I’m in my mid 40s. I was in my mid 30s when I first started getting serious about my career and job hopping. Companies don’t care how old you are if you have a current skillset. I also don’t try to work at the hipster companies.
In other words, your comment is hopelessly myopic and I hope you never experience the kind of grim unemployment that many people face, even developers in job-heavy cities, because you don’t seem equipped to survive it.
You mean by keeping my skills current, my network fresh, having a backup insurance plan, and having savings? Things everyone should do.
> “Companies don’t care how old you are if you have a current skillset.“
You claiming this pretty much invalidates everything else you’re saying, and makes me skeptical that you’re just lying about the other details. Nobody who has worked in professional circumstances for a while and “seen some shit” inside companies would say something as ludicrous as this.
> “by keeping my skills current, my network fresh, having a backup insurance plan, and having savings?“
Of course you should do all those things. Nobody said otherwise.
Those things don’t guarantee you’ll be hired again quickly though, not by a longshot. So negotiating severance is still a critical additional action to take over and above the other items you mentioned.
You claiming this pretty much invalidates everything else you’re saying, and makes me skeptical that you’re just lying about the other details. Nobody who has worked in professional circumstances for a while and “seen some shit” inside companies would say something as ludicrous as this.
Right. Because I mentioned “In 20 years its never taken me more than three weeks to get another job” before you mentioned ageism just in case you brought it up. Do I need to mention my experience programming on an Apple //e in 65C02 assembly language in the 80s to validate my old man cred?
If you are concerned with your job as a means of financial stability instead of your set of marketable skills and your network, you’re doing it wrong. Jobs come and go. I can honestly say that I didn’t stay up one night worried about being laid off even though I knew the company I worked for was in deep financial trouble. I had recruiters chomping at the bit waiting to place me.
Those things don’t guarantee you’ll be hired again quickly though, not by a longshot. So negotiating severance is still a critical additional action to take over and above the other items you mentioned.
How much good would it have done to “negotiate severance” successfully at the one company that I was laid off from that went out of business and had no money left?
I’ll take my chances on having a marketable skillset, and negotiating a salary that allows me to save my own money.
If you assume pessimisticly that you will get laid off and have a 3 month gap in employment every three years, all you have to do is negotiate an 8% higher than market rate and save your own money.
And while the pay purports to be in US dollars, it's in the form of a prepaid debit card with very low spending limits at non-approved vendors.
That is a scam. Severance should be paid as earned money, not as a debt.
Yeah... that was a facetious reference to net neutrality.
I am decoding for readers who did not get the humour:
instead of a single data cap with overage pay and consistent speed for all destinations, you get various separate caps for various destinations.
What company’s we talking about here and for what positions?
They aren't laying off people, it was a voluntary separation:
> Verizon Communications Inc said on Monday that about 10,400 employees will be leaving the U.S. wireless carrier by mid next year as part of the company’s voluntary separation program.
They offered a package earlier in the year https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/verizon-offers-separation-pl...
Of course they are. Many, many companies offer a “voluntary first” incentive to avoid the bad press and services they might otherwise have to provide to laid-off people. Jobs went away. Sugar-coating the exact method of ending the jobs doesn’t change that.
Your cynicism seems misplaced; up to a year's salary as severance sounds like a pretty sweet sugar-coating to me. They didn't "avoid bad press", they simply didn't do anything to merit bad press. What's wrong with someone voluntarily choosing to take money in exchange for a resignation? It's not as if there is something inherently wrong with "jobs going away" when your definition includes people voluntarily quitting their job.
To be fair, it's not entirely resignation. It's "take this X and resign, or be put on the list to be fired and get something less than X". It's still better than just being layed off, but it not as nice as a voluntary resignation.
The company solicited for volunteers, they didn't target individuals and give them an ultimatum.
I don't really see it as sugarcoating, this is way better than the alternative. They're giving their employees a generous heads up, offering an incentive to anyone who finds other employment, and people who really don't want to leave likely won't have to.
And they get to structure who leaves and when. You can wind down projects responsibly, shift resources over time, train people on new tasks. Far less disruptive than a sudden layoff.
Great point. This kind of arrangement assures that the exiting employee will be happy to cooperate with training their replacement in good faith.
> Of course they are.
Why? Because you say so? We should ignore the literal words of the press release in favor of something you think may happen?
In fact, the structure of the the offer is one that offer's a far greater incentive to those with a lot of seniority vs those who are newer. If we assume that many of these might be technician jobs under a union contract where more years of service equals higher pay, they could have more senior workers take the package, immediately hire new employees and save a decent amount of money.
Granted, I've only seen that strategy in practice with municipal workers, but it makes no more assumptions than you do.
> We should ignore the literal words of the press release
As a general rule, this is a good idea.
Are you familiar with the concept of PR?
"voluntary separation" might as well be lay-offs, because if they didn't get enough volunteers they would have laid people off without giving them a package.
I volunteered for a lay-off when they merged Aol and yahoo because I had recruiters breathing down my neck offering me big raises to leave anyway. I got enough in the severance and signing bonuses to pay off a new car and pay for most of my wife’s masters degree.
One of my major career regrets was leaving a job about 6 months before they offered voluntary layoffs with generous severance. I was already grumpy with the job. If only I held my nose and stuck around those six months, I would have been first in line for the package!
Or they increase the incentive until they get enough volunteers. Actual lay-offs can be a last resort.
Equivalent to airlines looking for people to give up a seat on the plane.
It sounds like they were offered that in lieu of a less favorable outcome...Also 3 weeks per year of service is in my experience less than standard.
When Sprint did numerous layoff rounds in 2004-2010, they paid out 2-weeks per year of service and capped it at 52 weeks.
I’ve seen 2 weeks at a lot of places.
Mine was 14 for BT in the Uk (tax free)
IBM offers statutory minimum i.e. “we would give you nothing if it was legal”. A year+ is a fair deal.
They aren't laying off people, it was a voluntary separation
It's just another layer of corporate double-speak.
The same way "fired" became "laid off."
Until the early 90's, "laid off" applied to factory and seasonal workers, who were expected to be recalled when production ramped up again.
I don't really think it's doublespeak.
Laid off means an employer doesn't want/need your position anymore.
Fired means an employer doesn't want you anymore.
I don't think it's quite so black-and-white. Often there are multiple such positions and they are being reduced. So your position still exists and they don't want you (or rather, they would prefer to have X number of your coworkers rather than you). I don't think it's synonymous with being fired, but you can smell it from there.
Every time I'm seen a layoff in tech it is always the lower performing employees first out the door. Round 1 is normally just letting people go who should have been fired years before.
Of course this is often when the good employees start doing interviews as well.
The first round of cuts (of deadweight that avoided egregious screwups) work so well that managers get addicted and pretty soon they're cutting the actual workers and they kill the company.
No previous commentator is correct "redundancy" is different to "laid off"
Fired means they are dismissing you for cause.
> The same way "fired" became "laid off."
Fired and laid-off are not synonyms. Fired and terminated are synonymous. However, laid off generally means the position is not continuing.
That being said, "voluntary separation" just means they are anticipating a large layoff and are attempting to reduce the overhead of determining who to let go.
Fired and laid-off are not synonyms
That's my point. But they're used interchangeably now by the PR departments of big companies so that getting rid of people doesn't seem so bad.
Fired means you were terminated, and can be for cause or for no reason. Laid off means the position was terminated and implicitly means your performance was not a factor. They don't mean the same thing and they're not used interchangeably.
>> They aren't laying off people, it was a voluntary separation
> It's just another layer of corporate double-speak.
No, it's really not.
Fired became 'let go'. Layoffs became 'reduction in force'. In my experience, I've never seen 'fired' and 'laid off', or their counterparts, used interchangeably.
Just semantics. But telecom companies have been in the business of shrinking since ATT split up in 1984.
Is this not just the same thing but with golden handshakes? Still looks like cost cutting.
If nobody volunteered, Verizon would start volunteering people. The end result would be similar, so, yeah, it's a layoff.