Verizon planning ("significant") job cuts in local unit

http://www.projo.com/business/content/projo_20060524_vz24.17440392.html

Verizon Communications Inc. plans "significant" job cuts in its shrinking local phone business to put more money into faster-growing areas, chief financial officer Doreen Toben said yesterday.

The number-two U.S. phone-service company won't give any details about the cuts, spokesman Peter Thonis said. It had 252,311 employees at the end of the first quarter, with about 140,000 in the local-phone business, spokesman Robert Varettoni said. The company had 217,000 employees at the end of last year, before buying MCI Inc.

"You will see reductions on the wireline side that are significant as we go through the next 18 months," Toben said at the Morgan Stanley 11th Annual Media & Communications Conference in Washington. The presentation was broadcast over the Internet.

Verizon lost 843,000 local lines in the first quarter, falling to 48 million, and has seen its total decline by 24 percent from a peak of 63 million at the end of 2000, when it employed 260,000 people.

The local business had first-quarter sales of $8.37 billion, or 37 percent of Verizon's total of $22.7 billion.

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"Significant is obviously is going to be in the thousands," said Spassova.

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The company has not done enough cost-cutting over the last ten years and it's badly needed. My job is probably safe, but you never know.

Not to lose my job, but they lost my business. After they betrayed me and sold my phone records to Bush, I decided to take my mone elsewhere.....to Q West.

Oh well, maybe the Verizon people can jump over to Q West. Their business should be going up.