Verizon cuts 3,000 retail jobs in franchise store shift

Verizon is cutting about 3,000 employees from its corporate-owned retail business and transferring 274 stores to independent operators, according to Bloomberg. The changes take effect on August 16 and will leave the largest US mobile carrier with about 1,000 company-owned stores and roughly 5,000 independent franchises.

A company spokesperson said many workers at the transferred locations are likely to be retained by the new owners, but they will no longer be employed by Verizon.

The move marks the third major layoff round under CEO Dan Schulman, who took over in October 2025 after leading PayPal for nearly a decade. In November, Verizon cut 20 percent of its nonunion workforce — about 13,000 employees — as part of a plan to remove $5 billion in operating expenses by the end of 2026. Hundreds more jobs were cut in May.

In a June interview with Bloomberg, Schulman said he expects artificial intelligence to replace “a large percentage” of customer service work, especially routine tasks such as billing questions and account changes. Verizon has also said its AI systems already deliver satisfaction scores nearly 13 percent higher than human agents on comparable interactions.

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Shifting stores from corporate ownership to franchise operators reduces Verizon’s fixed retail costs and pushes more operating risk onto third parties. The company has also rolled out a simplified wireless plan and a new loyalty rewards program with discounts for existing customers as competition from T-Mobile and cable providers intensifies.

The broader telecom and corporate push toward AI-driven cost cutting is accelerating. The article notes that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said AI has already eliminated 30 to 40 percent of jobs in some divisions, while the tech sector has shed more than 95,000 positions in 2026, with nearly half of surveyed hiring managers citing AI as the main reason.

Verizon is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on July 24. One open question is how far AI can really replace in-store retail work, which also includes device trade-ins, hardware troubleshooting, and face-to-face sales — tasks the new franchise owners will still need staff to handle.