Verizon ramped its cost-cutting effort, launching a voluntary buyout offer for thousands of management employees in an attempt to reduce its workforce, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

Employees have until mid-November to decide whether to accept the package, which includes three weeks’ worth of pay for each year of service with the company. Those who accept will exit between the end of this year and mid-2019, an operator representative told WSJ.

The belt-tightening comes as part of a larger plan to cut $10 billion in costs by 2022.

However, Verizon’s workforce has been dropping for some time, decreasing from 195,900 employees at end-June 2011 to 177,800 in June 2014. The operator shed more than 10,000 additional staffers over the past year, reducing its headcount from 163,400 at the end-June 2017 to 153,100 in June 2018.

Verizon’s staff count lags behind that of rival AT&T, which employed 273,210 at the end of June. But the operator still employs nearly three-times as many workers as T-Mobile US and Sprint.

The most recently available data showed T-Mobile recorded 51,000 full and part-time staff at end-2017, while Sprint had around 30,000 employees at end-March 2018.