Verizon Communications is on track to gradually cut up to a quarter of its workforce, and has now offered 44,000 employees “voluntary severance” packages, while also outsourcing many information technology jobs to India’s Infosys, Ltd., in a deal worth an estimated $700 million.

The Wall Street Journal received confirmation from Verizon this afternoon the company is seeking to reduce its workforce to cut $10 billion in costs and invest in its forthcoming 5G wireless network.

Analysts claim Verizon’s new CEO Hans Vestberg chose the voluntary layoff route in part to send a message to investors and Wall Street before the company embarks on a costly upgrade to its wireless network. Wall Street generally dislikes and downgrades companies starting large, long-term spending projects. By cutting its workforce and other expenses, Verizon hopes to offset some of the sting of that spending to appease investors.

To entice employees to retire, Verizon is offering three weeks’ pay for each year of service up to 60 weeks. But not every employee will qualify for the offer. About 2,500 Verizon workers employed in the company’s IT department have been notified their jobs are being transferred to Bengaluru, India-based Infosys, Ltd., where they will continue work for Verizon as outsourced contractors. Verizon has notified affected workers they do not qualify for the current voluntary severance offer and will lose their 2018 bonus if they refuse to accept a position at Infosys.

In all, about 30 percent of Verizon’s 153,100 employees have either been offered early retirement deals or are facing an involuntary transfer to Infosys. Affected employees are being told Verizon is investing “more in transforming the business versus running the business,” which may suggest additional outsourcing and third-party contracting arrangements may be forthcoming.

Infosys has a controversial record in the United States. The company has been accused of forcing high-paid American workers to train their low wage foreign replacements, often arriving from India on the H-1B visa. Those workers typically remain in the U.S. for about a year and temporarily manage job functions that eventually are transitioned to workers back in India or other developing countries.

Verizon claims it expects up to 1,000 workers to accept the voluntary severance offer, but has not indicated whether additional forced layoffs may follow.

Verizon has dramatically downsized since 2011, when it employed 195,900 workers — shedding more than 42,000 employees in the last seven years.