Verizon, the second-largest US telecoms group, is to cut a ­further 8,000 jobs in response to the recession and the loss of fixed-line business.

The cuts, equivalent to 3.4 per cent of Verizon’s workforce, come on top of a similar sized reduction in headcount over the past 12 months and showed, said Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research, that “no company is immune to the severity of the current downturn”.