Verizon Communications Inc. is showing a loss for the fourth quarter, brought down by a big charge for layoff costs.

The nation's second biggest phone company lost $653 million, or 23 cents per share, in the quarter. In the same period a year earlier it had a profit of $1.24 billion, or 43 cents per share.

Excluding one-time items, mainly consisting of a $3 billion charge for severance and other costs associated with layoffs, Verizon says it earned 54 cents per share. That was a penny below analyst estimates.

Revenue rose 10 percent to $27.1 billion, largely due to Verizon's January acquisition of Alltel Corp. Analysts were expecting $27.3 billion.