Verizon to cut 8,000 jobs due to falling wireline revenue

Telecommunications company Verizon will be eliminating 8,000 positions in the next six months, said CFO John Killian in the company's earnings call this morning.

"Although we are taking steps to mitigate the negative impacts of the economy in the short-term, we also need to more significantly reduce the wireline cost structure over the next 12 to 18 months...As part of our ongoing program to resize and reduce the cost structure, we reduced headcount by more than 8,000 over the last 12 months. We plan to do more than 8,000 in force and contractor reductions in the second half of this year," Killian said.

These cuts come quickly on the heels of the Verizon's sale of wireline assets to Frontier Communications. The $8.6 billion deal turned control over to Frontier in fourteen U.S. States. Union telecommunications workers and the state legislature of West Virginia worried the deal would adversely affect workers.