The Wall Street Journal-20080122-Yahoo Expects Cuts In Staff to Curb Budget
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Yahoo Expects Cuts In Staff to Curb Budget
Yahoo Inc. expects to cut staff in some areas under a drive to rein in its budget and focus its activities, people familiar with the matter said.
The exact extent of any future layoffs at the Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet company isn't known, though one person familiar with the matter estimated they potentially may affect hundreds of workers. Yahoo expects to finish 2008 with about the same number of workers as it had at the end of 2007 while planning to add staff in some areas deemed priorities, these people said. The company, which has experienced executive turnover and increased competition for selling online advertisements in recent years, now has about 14,000 employees.
Yahoo is expected to provide more information about any cuts and activities it is scaling back when it announces fourth-quarter results Jan. 29. Any cuts would signal to investors that the company plans to maintain or improve profit margins, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Some cuts are anticipated as part of a tight budget planned for 2008 that Yahoo's board will vote on before the earnings announcement.
"Yahoo has embarked on a multiyear transformation that includes making tough decisions about the business to help the company grow," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "Yahoo plans to invest in some areas, reduce emphasis in others, and eliminate some areas of the business that don't support the company's priorities." She added that Yahoo is hiring in important initiative areas.
Chief Executive Jerry Yang said in October that Yahoo would focus on three priorities: becoming the Internet starting point for the most consumers, a "must buy" for the most advertisers and an open technology platform for developers.
Yahoo recently cut a small number of jobs as it abandoned an effort known as "Worlds" that involved creating special Web sites for entertainment brands, such as Star Wars, and shifted responsibility for its Answers questions-and-answers service to staff in Europe.
Silicon Alley Insider reported earlier that Yahoo might make significant job cuts in the next two weeks.
