Reuters reports AT&T is exploring the possibility of leaving Puerto Rico, with a possible sale of its assets for around $3 billion.

AT&T is under pressure to reduce its large debt load after acquiring Time Warner (Entertainment) in 2018 for $85 billion, which left the telco with a total debt of $164 billion. CEO Randall Stephenson told shareholders he has made cutting debt at the company a major priority, resulting in job cuts, a sale of AT&T’s stake in Hulu for $1.43 billion, and letting go of WarnerMedia’s Hudson Yards offices in Manhattan for almost $2.2 billion.

AT&T has also indicated it is winding down its fiber broadband expansion program and is expecting to layoff additional workers as projects are finished around the country.

A complete exit from Puerto Rico would require a sale of AT&T’s wireless network, largely acquired after completing a buyout of Centennial Communications in 2009. AT&T has been earning about $300 million a year from its internet, TV, landline, and business service business on the island.

The company has hired a financial adviser to explore such a sale, but a source indicated AT&T may cancel its exit plans if it does not attract adequate bids. Potential acquirers include media companies and private equity firms. Buyers will face running the business in a compromised economy still recovering from 2017’s Hurricane Maria.

In the last three months of 2018, Frontier Communications reported it said goodbye to 67,000 broadband customers, lost $643 million in revenue year-over-year, and had to write down the value of its assets and business by $241 million, as the company struggles with a deteriorating copper wire network in many states where it operates.

But Wall Street was pleased the company’s latest quarterly results were not worse, and helped lift Frontier’s stock from $2.42 to $2.96 this afternoon, still down considerably from the $125 a share price the company commanded just four years ago.

Frontier’s fourth quarter 2018 financial results arrived the same week Windstream, another independent telephone company, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. Life is rough for the nation’s legacy telephone companies, especially those that have continued to depend on copper wire infrastructure that, in some cases, was attached to poles during the Johnson or Nixon Administrations.

Frontier Communications CEO Dan McCarthy is the telephone company’s version of Sears’ former CEO Edward Lampert. Perpetually optimistic, McCarthy has been embarked on a long-term ‘transformation’ strategy at Frontier, to wring additional profit out of the business that provides service to customers in 29 states. Much of that effort has been focused on cost-cutting measures, including layoffs of 1,560 workers last year, a sale of wireless towers, and various plans to make business operations more efficient, delivering mixed results.

McCarthy

Frontier’s efforts to improve customer service have been hampered by the quality and pricing of its services, which can bring complaints from customers, many who eventually depart. Frontier’s overall health continues to decline, financially gaining mostly through rate increases and new hidden fees and surcharges. In fact, much of Frontier’s latest revenue improvements come almost entirely from charging customers more for the same service.

McCarthy calls it ‘cost recovery’ and ‘steady-state pricing.’

“One of the things that we’ve been focused on really for the better part of two years is …. taking advantage of pricing opportunities [and] recovering content costs — really dealing with customers moving from promotional pricing to steady-state pricing, and then offering different opportunities for customers both from a speed and package perspective,” McCarthy said Tuesday. “The quarter really was about us targeting customers very selectively and really trying to improve customer lifetime value.”

By “selectively,” McCarthy means being willing to let promotion-seeking customers go and being less amenable to customers trying to negotiate for a lower bill. The result, so far, is 103,000 service disconnects over the past three months and 379,000 fewer customers over the past year. A good number of those customers were subscribed to Frontier FiOS fiber to the home service, but still left for a cable company or competing fiber provider, often because Frontier kept raising their bill.

AT&T began laying off thousands of workers Monday, mostly targeting highly skilled and highly paid long-time AT&T employees nearing retirement age.

Many of those laid off this week worked in the company’s wireline division, which supplies landline phone service, fiber and copper-based internet service for residential and commercial customers, and AT&T’s Foundry “innovation” centers. Other affected units include AT&T Technology & Operations, Mobility, Construction and Financing, Entertainment Group, Global Supply, Finance, and DTV (DirecTV).

Many of those targeted for layoffs were approaching 30 years with AT&T, part of an important benchmark allowing employees to retire with maximum benefits. Those who did not quite make it will be offered two weeks pay for every year of service in severance instead, capped at a maximum of six months pay. Affected employees must leave AT&T by Feb. 18 or accept, when available, an alternate position at the company if one can be located within 50 miles of the current job location.

Last year, AT&T claimed that as a result of the passage of significant corporate tax cuts signed into law by President Trump, the company would hire at least 7,000 new workers and invest up to $1 billion in its business. AT&T claims it has already exceeded those commitments, hiring more than 20,000 new employees last year and more than 17,000 the year before, although the company would not confirm if those workers were directly hired by AT&T and in the United States. The Communications Workers of America reports that AT&T eliminated 10,700 union jobs from its payroll in 2018, with at least 16,000 employees replaced by offshore workers. The company had 273,210 employees as of August 2018.

In a leaked internal memo from AT&T’s vice president of technology and operations, Jeff McElfresh warned AT&T would be laying off a significant number of workers this year. The company is seeking a “geographic rationalization” of its current employees to cut a “surplus” of workers.

“To win in this new world, we must continue to lower costs and keep getting faster, leaner, and more agile,” McElfresh told employees. “This includes reductions in our organization, and others across the company, which will begin later this month and take place over several months.”

The wife of one “surplus” worker described how an AT&T manager ended her husband’s 29-year career at AT&T in a scripted, four-minute phone call.

“My husband had 29 years with the company. [He] has been a fiber and copper splicer, engineer, ran a construction crew, and has been an instructor as the subject matter expert in over 50 courses for the last 18 years,” she shared. “His boss called him this morning […] and in less than four minutes told him he was out. Twenty-nine years and you get a call that takes less than 4 minutes?”

Some workers unaffected by the current round of layoffs fear that AT&T gutted some of its most experienced and qualified talent, and worries about the future competence of AT&T to manage its business.

“We lost so many people throughout our work groups that there is no way I can see us being able to support the systems going forward. Can’t happen,” one employee shared. “We even lost people that were in one deep slots without any thought about the impact. Some positions that flat out require multiple people just to support the existing volume of support work and new projects have been reduced to one or less headcount.”

Despite a strong economy, Verizon Communications will shed 10,400 employees and cut $10 billion in costs as part of a transformation initiative promoted by the company’s newest top executive.

“These changes are well-planned and anticipated, and they will be seamless to our customers,” said Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. “This is a moment in time, given our financial and operational strength, to begin to better serve customers with more agility, speed and flexibility.”

For Andrew Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm that closely monitors corporate layoffs, Verizon’s willingness to let go of 7% of their workforce is an ominous sign of possible additional job reductions in the future.

Vestberg has advocated reorienting Verizon towards a potentially lucrative 5G wireless future. The estimated $10 billion in cost savings could placate investors on Wall Street alarmed about increased spending Verizon is likely to undertake to deploy 5G infrastructure over the next five years.

In October, Verizon offered more than 44,000 employees a voluntary buyout package and announced it would transfer thousands of current employees to Infosys, an outsourcing company headquartered in India. The voluntary separation package included up to 60 weeks’ salary, bonus and benefits, depending on length of service. This morning, accepted participants received word of their last day of employment, which will be the last day of this year or at the end of March or June, 2019. Verizon currently has 152,300 employees.

Challenger believes Verizon is likely to continue letting employees go as the company faces ongoing pressures on its landline and business service units and endures cord-cutting for its FiOS fiber to the home service. Challenger told CNBC the 44,000 workers who took Verizon’s offer likely made a smart decision. Companies that offer voluntary buyouts in good times can be a sign of likely layoffs when the economy slows down. With record low unemployment, the Verizon workers leaving the telecom company are likely to find new jobs much easier than those forced to look during a recession.

Verizon employees transferred to Infosys may be among the next to be targeted in future layoffs, according to Challenger. Verizon workers will be working closely with low-paid Indian staffers who may eventually replace them.

Workers who are assigned to train cheaper workers should keep their eyes open and resumes ready, Challenger warned.

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.