Verizon confirms plans to lay off 13,000 employees

Verizon is set to lay off more than 13,000 employees and every part of the company will be going through some changes, CEO Dan Schulman has confirmed. The company is reducing its headcount and cutting back on outsourcing and other external labor expenses in service of "building a stronger Verizon," Schulman wrote in a memo to staff. The company will also convert 179 retail stores that it owns into franchised outlets and it will close one store.In September, Verizon said it had around 100,000 full-time employees, so the layoffs constitute about 13 percent of the workforce. Over the previous three years, Verizon had cut about 20,000 jobs. Meanwhile, a $20 billion takeover of telecoms company Frontier Communications is set to close early next year.It was reported last week that Verizon was set to cull around 15,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive in the face of sterner competition and a drop in postpaid wireless customers. Schulman — a former PayPal CEO who took on his curr