Simply earlier than closing its acquisition of Time Warner, initially of 2018, 252,000 folks have been getting paid by AT&T. That determine declined to 146,000 by the top of final June for a 42% decline. Throughout the identical time interval, Verizon noticed its headcount decline by one-third to 103,900 which is why the 4,800 being laid off will take the provider underneath 100,000 workers.
Headcount figures for each AT&T and Verizon have been trending down. | Picture credit-Lightreading
Why would these two firms, nonetheless concerned in offering prospects with cutting-edge wi-fi service, have at hand out pink slips? AT&T’s high line has dropped by $83.1 billion between 2017 and 2023 however Verizon noticed its income rise by $7.9 billion over the identical interval. By reducing jobs, each firms have managed to develop into extra environment friendly. AT&T final yr generated $813,500 of income per worker, up from $573,200 in 2017. Verizon took in $1,271,000 per worker in 2023 which was up from the $811,000 in gross per worker reported by Verizon in 2017.
All of those figures inform us what has occurred to AT&T and Verizon workers, and why. However they do not inform the remaining workers about the way forward for their jobs, particularly as extra prospects flip to ordering telephones and wi-fi plans on-line. And there’s additionally the concern AI will substitute them whether or not their job requires them to deal with buyer queries or write software program code to deal with upkeep points.
Shankar Arumugavelu, Verizon‘s chief info officer addressed this difficulty when he stated, “Immediately, a few of the key selections which might be being made by people – are we snug letting that go and having the machine make that call? I believe that’s the bridge we’ve to cross.”
AT&T and Verizon proceed to see how a lot they will whittle down their headcount with out affecting the shopper expertise. For now, it seems that each companies are getting away with doing extra with smaller payrolls. Till they hit the extent of employment that results in quite a few complaints from subscribers, do not anticipate both agency to begin hiring.
