Chart: telecom headcount change 2016 to 2025 per each company's SEC 10-K filing. Frontier down 54.1%, AT&T down 50.4%, Verizon down 44.1%, Lumen down 40%, DISH/EchoStar down 24.4%, Charter up 0.4% and Comcast up 12.6%. Legacy telecom shed 24 to 54% of its jobs; cable looks flat only because mergers reset the baseline. Source: SEC EDGAR, compiled by myutilitysearch.com.
Utilities have spent a decade talking about workforce transitions. Telecom has been running one quietly, and the numbers are in the SEC filings.
I went back to the "Employees" section of the 10-K for nine major U.S. telecom and pay-TV operators. Eight of nine reported fewer employees in their latest filing.
Frontier: 28,300 to 13,000 (down 54%, 2016 to 2024)
AT&T: 268,000 to 133,030 (down 50%)
Verizon: 160,900 to 89,900 (down 44%)
Lumen: about 40,000 to about 24,000 (down 40%)
DISH/EchoStar: 16,000 to 12,100. The combined company is now smaller than DISH was on its own in 2016.
Optimum: 11,000 to 9,500 since 2022
Charter (Spectrum): down 9.6% from its 2022 peak
Comcast: down from 190,000 in 2019 to 179,000
T-Mobile: the only one up, and only because of UScellular. It then cut 4,671 U.S. jobs in the first half of 2026.
2026 isn't slowing down. Verizon took on about 13,000 Frontier employees in January and was 6,300 lower by September. AT&T is down to 127,150.
Three patterns stand out:
Jobs follow the product. The deepest cuts are where the core product is shrinking: copper phone lines and satellite TV. Cable is entering that phase now.
Acquire, then grind. Every big deal raises headcount once, and then the company shrinks back quietly. Charter described its 2025 drop as "mostly attrition."
The next round is already funded: Charter's $2B cost plan, Comcast's $1B+ restructuring charge, and the Frontier and Cox integrations.
Why it matters to utility professionals: telecom went through this as its legacy network aged out and a new one took over. Utilities are heading into a similar shift with grid modernization, AMI and automation. Telecom's filings show how a network business shrinks its workforce without announcing big layoffs, through attrition, integrations and restructuring charges.
Every number links to its SEC filing. Full tables and SEC links at myutilitysearch.com:
https://myutilitysearch.com/telecom-layoffs-by-company/?utm_source=energycentral&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=telecom-layoffs-9co