Verizon and AT&T are apparently yet again mowing the lawn: thousands of jobs are gone. Is AI to blame here… again? Not so fast, says a new report.
Laying off thousands of people
Dan Schulman (Verizon's CEO) doesn't pull any punches when it comes to AI and the future ahead. He predicts a massive unemployment rate and AI agents outnumbering humans tenfold, but we're not there yet. However, Verizon is swinging the job axe again.
The telco had almost 10,000 fewer employees in December 2025 than in December 2024 (when Schulman took over, the promises were about 13,000 job cuts).
4G coverage. | Image by FCC
By June 2026, Verizon had 97,600 employees. Fast forward to September: the figure has dropped to just over 93,000… and that's a drop of more than 4,000 jobs in a single Q of 2026.
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AT&T plays the same game
Per the data, AT&T has laid off about 3,700 employees in the July-September period of 2026. When combined with Verizon's layoffs, these amount up to about 8,000 jobs that were axed in Q3.
Overall, the two companies employed about 220,500 people (in September 2026), which, hold on to your hats, is fewer than AT&T alone had in 2020. That's just six years ago. Overall, the two companies have slashed over 142,000 jobs since 2020.
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Is Verizon in trouble?
Everything and everyone is in trouble these days (humanity is in one of those moods once again), but telcos shouldn't complain too much. For example, Verizon's revenue per employee was $970,500 in 2020. In 2025, it was more than half a million dollars.
So, not every layoff round is a sign of weakness. Yeah, sure, it sucks to lose your job in 2026, but think how optimistic shareholders and investors would be when they learn that Verizon is generating higher revenue with fewer employees (who, disturbingly enough, demand a paycheck at the end of every month).
However, these telcos aren't necessarily making much more money while spending far less than they did a few years ago. Verizon's operating costs rose slightly from about $24 billion five years ago to $25.7 billion in the recent third quarter, while AT&T's stayed roughly unchanged at $28.2 billion. At the same time, both companies have significantly reduced their workforces, with Verizon cutting 17% of its employees and AT&T cutting 28%.
But if they hadn't cut all those jobs (the process started way before AI was promoted), they'd surely be in trouble today.
Sebastian is one of PhoneArena’s senior opinionators. A veteran news writer with almost 20 years of experience in media and technology, he not only covers all the hot news about Galaxies and iPhones, but often provides hot takes on industry trends. He’s fascinated with camera-focused flagships from the likes of Oppo and Vivo, as well as foldable phones.
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