Verizon has already cut 8,000 jobs in the last twelve months, and during the company’s second quarter earnings conference call announced they’d be laying off another 8,000 employees during the second half of this year. While some of the layoffs are because of the housing market and Verizon’s slowly dying residential phone business, the company is also making a very intentional move away from rural connectivity so they can focus on more immediately profitable urban and suburban FiOS and wireless delivery. Interestingly, the 200 employees laid off yesterday in Massachusetts and Rhode Island were mostly FiOS installers:

Eric Hetrick, business manager of IBEW Local 2322 in Middleborough, said the majority of the laid-off workers are technicians who carry out home installations of Verizon s FIOS network. Verizon is aggressively promoting FIOS, which delivers high-definition TV and high-speed Internet access as well as phone service. Hetrick said the FIOS technicians had plenty of work to do but were laid off because they had less seniority than other union members.

Verizon began this year with roughly 235,000 workers nationwide.

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