Verizon Wireless Contractor Lays Off Some Baltimore-Area Sales Staff

A Verizon Wireless contractor that provides sales people to the cell phone company announced plans to eliminate 173 positions across Maryland—including some 60 jobs at Verizon Wireless stores in the Baltimore area.

Workers at retail outlets in Baltimore City, Middle River, Columbia, Glen Burnie, Catonsville, Pikesville, and Timonium are expected to lose their jobs by Aug. 31.

The contractor, Flextronics Inc., is eliminating the jobs because Verizon is terminating its long-term contract with the Singapore-based international technical services firm. 

Under that agreement, Flextronics provided thousands of sales workers and technical staff to the cell phone giant in Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia and other states, said Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Melanie Ortel.

But the news isn't as bad as it may appear.

Flextronics will terminate the employment of its workers, Ortel said, but Verizon Wireless will now hire new employees directly to fill the gap. The company expects to offer some of those jobs to the former Flextronics employees whose jobs are being eliminated.

However, Ortel did not say whether Verizon Wireless would offer jobs directly to any of the fired Flextronics employees, or whether they would be forced to take pay and benefit cuts. Neither would say how many individual workers the company would hire.

She added that the same process of eliminating jobs at Flextronics and hiring new employees to replace the fired workers is taking place in numerous locations across the country.

According to published news reports, such job cuts are also underway in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio and Indiana, among others

Verizon Wireless representatives did not provided requests for a full list of the job cuts.

According to Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation spokesman Mike Raia, 59 individuals at seven Verizon Wireless stores in the greater Baltimore area have been notified that their jobs will be eliminated effective Aug. 31.

Another 114 workers at widely dispersed locations in other parts of the state will also see their jobs eliminated at the same time, he said.

The Baltimore-area Verizon Wireless locations affected by the jobs plan are:

-      8149 Honeygo Boulevard, Baltimore City

-      405 Williams Court, Middle River

-      9021 Snowden Square Drive, Columbia

-      6711 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie

-      7900 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie

-      6220 Baltimore National Pike, Catonsville

-      1852 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville

-      1946 York Road, Timonium

Verizon Wireless, based in Basking Ridge, NJ, is one of the leading cell phone operators in the country, with some 85,000 employees worldwide.