Internet portal Yahoo! said today it will be making up to 2,000 redundancies – about 14pc of its workforce – as part of a restructuring of the company. The plan is expected to save Yahoo! up to US$375m.
In a statement, CEO Scott Thompson said: “Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! – smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require. We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities.
“Our goal is to get back to our core purpose – putting our users and advertisers first – and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal,” said Thompson.
“Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions. We deeply value our people and all they’ve contributed to Yahoo!”
Yahoo!, which is embroiled in a patents battle with Facebook, says it could save US$375m on an annualised basis through the lay-offs and expects severance costs to be between US$125m-US$145m.
The portal giant’s first-quarter financial results are expected on 17 April.
In the announcement, the internet firm said it has solid foundations with some 700m users and thousands of advertisers.
It says it has identified a group of ‘core businesses’ into which it will intensify its efforts and global resources.
