#layoffs

Divebombing into oblivion
Dying along with Larry

Commonwealth has recently implemented layoffs affecting its home office staff. These workforce reductions are occurring in anticipation of the company's conversion to LPL. Affected employees are expected to remain in their positions through the end of 2026. The article does not specify the exact number of employees impacted by these layoffs. Further details regarding the conversion process are also not provided.

https://citywire.com/pro-buyer/news/exclusive-commonwealth-lays-off-home-office-staffers-ahead-of-lpl-conversion/a2494349

CDW has recently conducted layoffs as part of an organizational restructuring. The company stated these changes are intended to sharpen operating discipline and reinvest in high-growth opportunities. This move aligns with CDW's AI-first initiative, aiming to enhance efficiency and customer focus. The exact number of affected employees was not disclosed. Previous layoffs at CDW occurred in July of last year and in April 2023.

Vernon Hills, Illinois

https://www.crn.com/news/channel-news/2026/cdw-cuts-jobs-as-ai-cost-cutting-drive-takes-hold

Fifth Third Bank is implementing additional layoffs following its significant acquisition of Comerica. The bank is also vacating Comerica's former downtown headquarters. These actions indicate a strategic restructuring phase for the financial institution. Further details regarding the scope and impact of these job cuts are expected. The company is actively managing its post-merger operational footprint.

Frisco, Texas

https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2026/07/16/fifth-third-comerica-layoffs-signage-comes-down.html

After spending 25 years at Big O across multiple organizations and technologies, I feel I'm in a good position to share my perspective.

One thing many people misunderstand is how compensation works. In my experience, bonuses, salary increases, and RSU's are not automatic rewards for hard work or tenure. They depend heavily on your manager's recommendation, the leadership chain, and the budget allocated to your organization.

Even if your manager believes you deserve a significant raise, there are organizational constraints. Most teams receive a limited compensation budget, so managers often have to make difficult trade-offs. In a team of 10 people, only a small number (Read 1 or almost 2) may receive meaningful increases while everyone else gets little or nothing. That's simply how the budgeting process works.

Because of that, I've learned not to assume that working harder automatically translates into better compensation. Performance really doesn't matter a lot, but manager advocacy, organizational priorities do have their share.

At Big O, timing and organizational placement often matter as much as talent. You could have the abilities of Elon Musk, but if you're buried in an org that's five or six levels below an EVP, don't expect exceptional career growth. Realistically, you may spend years capped at something like IC4, irrespective of your performance.

The same applies to layoffs. From what I've observed over the years, layoffs are not always a pure reflection of talent or performance. Its just big fish eats small fish. One influential manager saving his and sacrificing some one else. Or its a bid. A manager will be asked how many you can get rid off. Sometimes excellent employees are affected while others remain. That's the reality of working in a large corporation.

My advice is simple: don't spend too much emotional energy trying to predict the next raise cycle or the next round of layoffs. Forums like Layoffs.com and Reddit are full of speculation, but nobody outside leadership truly knows what's going to happen.

Instead, invest in yourself. Keep your skills current, interview occasionally, build your professional network, and make sure you always have options.

One lesson that surprised me after leaving Big O was this: spending decades working on internal systems and technologies doesn't automatically translate into equivalent market value outside the company. Many of the tools, processes, and systems are unique to Big O. In many ways, you have to rebuild your external profile and prove yourself again. If you're fortunate enough to find a role using similar technologies, the transition is easier—but that's not always the case.

This is just my experience after 25 years. Others may have had very different experiences, but I hope this perspective helps someone focus on what they can control rather than worrying about what they can't.

State Street is implementing a workforce reduction as part of a strategic shift. The company anticipates significant severance costs through 2029. This move is tied to an overhaul of its operations utilizing cloud-computing resources. The financial giant aims to boost its profit margins through these changes. This initiative signals a significant operational transformation for the firm.

Boston, Massachusetts

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2026/07/16/state-street-plans-large-transformation-headcount.html

ArcBest is implementing a restructuring plan that includes workforce reductions of approximately 2%. The company will also consolidate some less-than-truckload terminals, reducing its network footprint. These changes aim to achieve significant annualized cost savings. Additionally, ArcBest is consolidating several brands under its main banner and retiring others. The restructuring is expected to result in both cash and noncash charges.

Fort Smith, Arkansas

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/arcbest-announces-layoffs-closing-10-ltl-terminals

At this point it feels less like "if" and more like "when." Between the CEO changes, the exec departures, and the pattern we've seen every couple months this year, another round seems inevitable. Anyone hearing anything about timing? Curious if people think it's weeks away or if we get a quiet quarter first.

Capital One Financial is implementing further workforce reductions in Illinois. The company plans to eliminate at least 276 positions. These layoffs are part of a financial restructuring and integration process. Affected employees work at the Riverwoods site or remotely but report to that location. The job cuts are scheduled to occur between early August and early September.

Riverwoods, Illinois

https://www.pjstar.com/story/news/state/2026/07/17/more-illinois-workers-to-lose-job-because-of-capital-one-layoffs-in-riverwoods-il/90906458007/

I stand here on ashes and ember. Many colleagues impacted, particularly those I rely on to support and drive execution. I suppose someone will figure out how I can push any projects through without them? I will quietly and simply sit on my hands until then.

1. Continued market share losses across beverages and snacks, last four weeks, last 12 weeks, last 52 weeks, last 5 years
2. GLP-1 adoption accelerating in US, rest of the world is just getting started.
3. A disappointing M&A track record that generates negative shareholder value
4. Executive Leadership that you wouldn’t trust to look after your dog and even worse bench of leaders

You can solve the first three but you can’t solve the fourth one. Investors also have just given up.

Verizon employees are on the ropes. How many more body blows can they take before they get knocked out for good. The company is an utter mess at the moment. Employees are shell shocked and trying to keep their heads down whilst wondering if it’ll be them that are laid off next. Running a company based on fear and uncertainty only results in one thing : failure

https://www.crn.com/news/channel-news/2026/cdw-cuts-jobs-as-ai-cost-cutting-drive-takes-hold

Dell was at record highs in the markets, nothing from this performance was ever shared w the employees. Dell is about to be cut in half can you imagine what this company is going to do to you now

Does anyone really believe they are stopping at 1k for stores? Why would they when the agents can do all the heavy lifting. New York and the northeast got sla-ghtered today. Definitely more to come, the only question is when?

does anyone else find it interesting how as soon as the deadline passed for the VSP, new jobs are being posted?

part of the terms of applying for the VSP was not being able to apply for internal roles. if your application is approved, then you cannot go back and change your mind if you see an internal role you’re interested in.

halfway annoyed as there are three positions I’m interested in. I’ve been waiting for MONTHS for a growth opportunity. there seemed to be little to no opportunity with the “hiring freeze” and looming layoffs in the future. now all of the sudden, 50+ roles have been posted in the last week??

I guess I’ll just wait and see what happens.

Not left vs right. This is up vs down.

1. The “manager” title with no direct reports. Federal labor law excludes supervisors from union eligibility, so titling people into that bucket without giving them real authority shrinks who’s even allowed to organize. In a store that’s two assistant managers and a store manager who can’t organize while the reps under them can. Go up the chain and it never stops. District manager can’t. Senior director can’t. VP can’t. It is not accidental who ends up on which side of that line.

2. Coordinated response when union talk starts. Extra staffing so people can “take time off,” sudden one on ones to “hear concerns,” the moment a store shows organizing interest. That is a known playbook, not something that happens organically.

3. The “one unionized store” comparison. “See, nothing’s different, they just pay dues.” That is not proof unions do not work. It is proof one isolated store has no leverage. Power comes from density, not outliers. Funny how those stores rarely get closed while unionized.

4. Reorgs as the vehicle for cuts, not the goal. The org chart does not change because the new structure is better. It changes because headcount needed to shrink and restructuring is the mechanism. “Right sizing” language usually means the number came first and the chart is just catching up.

5. Benefits eroding slowly enough that no single year feels like the moment. Vacation accrual caps shrinking. Tuition assistance cut in half. Stock and incentive programs trimmed. Healthcare costs climbing. Pensions that used to exist for a subset of employees, gone for new hires. None of it happens all at once, so it never feels like a breaking point. It just feels like death by a thousand cuts. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets written into a contract instead of quietly decided for you year after year.

6. Pay secrecy norms. Talking about your raise percentage, your review score, or your pay band feels taboo, even though discussing wages with coworkers is explicitly protected activity.

7. “Family” language. Reframes an adversarial labor conversation as disloyalty to “the team.”

8. The word “union” itself gets the stigma, not the concept. Strip the label and it is just organizing together for bargaining power. People used to have real leverage in the workplace. Now the default is asking nicely for more while getting handed less.

9. The designated fall guy. Bring in a leader on a short runway whose whole job is the unpopular cuts. Once the hard part is done, a successor comes in and gets to be the relief, thank god it is not like it used to be, while the structural cuts already happened.

10. Manufactured internal strife. Departments blaming each other instead of recognizing everyone is on the same side of this. Division between departments is a lot more useful to leadership than solidarity across them.

11. “Savings” from layoffs are often not real savings. Convert corporate stores to franchise and the labor cost doesn’t disappear, it shifts to an indirect operator while the company still takes its cut. Lay off tenured people and rehire for the same functional need at a lower rate, and headcount looks similar in six months but the average cost per employee dropped because tenure and its pay got reset to zero. That’s not reduced need for labor. That’s wage suppression using a layoff as the delivery mechanism.

One more thing worth saying plainly. Not every union is a good union. Organizing does not automatically mean your interests are protected. Corruption can creep into any institution, including the ones built to fight for you. That does not make the underlying idea wrong. It just means accountability does not stop once something is organized, it just shifts to a different table. Our own FIOS and wireline employees are already organized through CWA. It’s not a foreign concept here.

Now let’s talk about “the company isn’t making money”

Verizon has reported a profit every single year since at least 2001. Not one loss year, through the 2008 financial crisis, through COVID, through every merger. 2020 net income was $17.8 billion. 2021 was $22.1 billion, the highest of the decade. Those were not sacrifice years where the company ate a loss to protect jobs. Those were some of the most profitable years the company has ever had.

2025 net income was $17.6 billion. Dan Schulman’s 2025 total compensation was $34.3 million, on a new contract that includes performance equity worth up to $59.5 million more. The six highest paid named executives combined made about $120 million in 2025, and that’s only the publicly disclosed portion of the leadership team.

Where does the profit actually go? $11.5 billion in dividends paid to shareholders in 2025. A $25 billion stock buyback authorized on top of that. Buybacks don’t hand cash to executives directly, they buy shares on the open market mostly from large institutional holders like index funds and pension funds, while propping up the stock price for everyone who keeps holding. Compare that to the severance cost of the November layoff of 13,000 people: $1.6 to $1.8 billion, a one time charge that’s smaller than what gets paid out in dividends alone in about six or seven weeks.

Yes, some of the money goes back into the network. $17 billion in capital expenditures in 2025. That’s real and legitimate. But that number is also being cut for 2026, down to $16 to $16.5 billion, because the heavy build phase is mostly done. Meanwhile the buyback authorization just grew.

If someone tells you layoffs are happening because the company can’t afford to pay people, that claim does not survive contact with the company’s own numbers.

So what’s the actual moral here

This was never about whether the company can afford to treat people well. It’s about a choice, made over and over, about where the money goes. And the tools used to make that choice feel inevitable, the misclassified titles, the reorg-as-cover, the stigma on the word union, the vague streamlining language, all serve one purpose: making a distributional choice look like a structural necessity. Making “we decided you get less so someone else gets more” sound like “there wasn’t enough to go around.”

US union density peaked around 1954 at roughly 35% of all workers. Today it’s about 9%. Most people in this workforce right now grew up hearing “we don’t need a union, look how well we’re treated,” during a period when that was actually true. That belief never got re-examined as conditions changed underneath it. We’re applying an old conclusion to a reality that no longer matches it.

Is it going to be perfect if we organize? No. But right now we’re fighting each other instead of the actual problem, and giving away power for free in the process. Density is the only thing that turns this from a list of grievances into actual leverage at an actual table. We’re all in the same boat here, just on different floors. What would it take to stop having this conversation store by store, department by department, and start having it together?

Announced in May of this year. Has it been completed by now?

anyone else just feel constantly discouraged and unmotivated from these layoffs? been here for a year and have survived 3 layoffs. it is definitely not making me feel great as an employee

K&L Gates has initiated significant workforce reductions affecting its allied professional roles. The firm confirmed these cuts represent approximately ten percent of this staff category. These actions are intended to streamline operations and better align with current business needs and future growth strategies. The firm stated it is providing support, including separation benefits and outplacement services, to affected employees. While the firm's statements focus on staff, some reports suggest junior lawyers may also have been impacted, though this has been officially denied.

https://abovethelaw.com/2026/07/layoff-alert-kl-gates-announces-significant-cuts/

He was senior leadership in Indirect. They must have hit others and not just retail. I hear he a good guy. Anyone know anything new?

A law firm is investigating Amazon for a potential violation of the WARN Act concerning a recent mass layoff. The investigation focuses on whether Amazon provided the required 60 days' notice to 494 employees affected by the layoff. If notice was insufficient, affected employees may be entitled to back pay and benefits. The firm is seeking to speak with impacted individuals to discuss their rights. This action highlights the legal obligations employers have during significant workforce reductions.

Port St. Lucie, Florida

https://straussborrelli.com/2026/07/15/amazon-pbi3-warn-act-investigation/

I know how we see this mess. Now I know how others see it. Pretty much the same.

https://x.com/johsinny/status/2077162630452519380
Posted at 10:45 PM on Jul 14, 2026

"Verizon was once a pillar of American innovation. Today it reflects strategic drift and a failure to lead.

With no clear path to growth or meaningful differentiation, CEO Dan Schulman appears to be reverting to the oldest and weakest playbook: cutting skilled American workers to prop up short term stock bump.

This tactic ignores a fundamental truth. A company cannot hollow out its own institutional knowledge without consequence. The talent being discarded is the very foundation that made Verizon great.

What we are seeing resembles railway operator’s “last car” fallacy. Remove the weakest link for a smoother ride, but there is always another last car. Eventually, nothing of value remains.

This is not leadership. It is managed decline.

The board must recognize the trajectory and act before an iconic American company is diminished beyond repair."

I heard that this time around the direct managers had an input on who leaves and who stays. Does anyone know if this is true? My understanding was that the execs are the ones who make those decisions. Does anyone know the criteria?

Beware the new CHRO Samantha H
My hubby works for Verizon n says she smiles big n projects positivity n then will turn around and RIF hundreds of y’all
If you have a chance, bask her how many people she layed off at Verizon
She and her people are notorious for retaliating against employees too so be careful

For those of you good at math, how many employees need to be laid off to reach a 55% efficiency ratio? GK said on the earnings call that the goal is 55%-57%.

Ages of the people I know who were laid off today. Why am I not even surprised?

It sounds like everything is out now.

We sold a significant amount of doors to the agents... The good news is, those employees will have a job. I’m told we’re keeping a thousand corporate doors and that my team and I are safe for at least 3 years, do we trust that? Looks like operations took a significant hit, who is going to do that work?

Overall, I feel lucky, but feel awful for anyone who is impacted.

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/verizon-shed-274-stores-lay-off-another-500-corporate-employees-2026-07-16/

July 16 (Reuters) - U.S. wireless carrier Verizon (VZ.N), opens new tab said on Thursday it will sell 274 company-owned retail locations ​and cut about 500 corporate jobs as part of its ‌restructuring.

The moves will affect about 3,000 retail and corporate employees. Verizon will own 1,000 stores after the sale, effective August 16. Verizon eliminated several hundred jobs in ​May after announcing in November it was cutting more than ​13,000 jobs in its largest single round of layoffs.

Not the PR number, the actual one.

For nothing management gets the axe again. Brownosing for nothing lol bet your wishing you joined a union NOW!!!! Lol and tell me can you hear me NOW keep your service with us too DS needs a new Ferrrari vroooooooooooom.

Anyone on the 5G Home ready team affected? BDM's, AD's, Directors? This program has been going with no actual traction. Sooo many delays with roll out and build outs its insane.

This is a very volatile industry, whether you survived the layoff(s) or not, we constantly need to reinvent ourselves to remain competitive, unless you're lucky enough to retire. I've been in the industry now for going on 30 years and have seen CEO's come and go. Seidenberg, Lee, McAdam, Vestberg and now Shulman, all got their cut and moved on. Take what you can from the experience and reinvent yourself, here or somewhere new. Life is too short to let these companies dictate your life to you. Peace to all

It’s to diverse your store got confirmation blood bath

Does anyone know or from last round know this. If you take the severance, for example if I get paid out for 20 weeks, do I still qualify for six months unemployment or will it be six months minus the 20 weeks that Verizon paid me severance for?

They completely sc--wed up the decisions on the Customer Experience team. Many hardworking, genuine, and talented people were let go, while many boot-licking, useless, and incompetent people were left behind. I can’t wrap my head around it.

At the very least, leadership should have checked how many launches each team actually delivered during the calendar year before making these decisions.

The rest of us are now stuck working with these incompetent Digital Experience team who works on egos and not for Verizon.

A new state budget has provided crucial funding for Genesee County's prosecutor's office. This development averts the threat of layoffs for 32 employees. The funding supports a program aimed at adding staff to prosecutor offices in high-crime areas. This financial relief prevents a significant budget hole for the county. Employees can now expect continued employment without fear of job loss.

Flint, MI

https://www.mlive.com/news/2026/07/new-state-budget-funds-extra-genesee-county-prosecutors-shelves-potential-layoffs.html