Yahoo is expected to announce some job cuts tomorrow as they announce their third quarter earnings. The number of cuts has been rumored to be anywhere between 1,000 and 3,500. The company is no stranger to letting go chunks of employees, and with current economic conditions, it is no surprise that they are at it again. Rafat Ali at PaidContent.org writes:
The company fired about 1,000 workers in January this year. The company had about 14,300 employees worldwide at the end of June. With the economy being in the shape it is, some of this is the usual belt tightening, but for Yahoo, the issues are more dire. With the fallen MSFT deal, the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) search deal stuck in regulatory issues, competitive pressure increasing from all sides, and major slowdown in display advertising online, Yahoo’s time is running out on multiple fronts.
They’re definitely hoping that Google deal is approved by the Department of Justice. There’s no question that teaming up with their biggest competitor would bring the company a substantial amount of revenue. But with that deal that was supposed to be kicked off this month still in limbo, it’s got to be hard to look ahead to the future with any kind of certainty.
“Let’s just hope Yahoo isn’t dumb enough to announce the firings now and then wait until mid-December to actually make them,” writes Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider. “Let’s also hope the company doesn’t cut too few people and then have to go through the same horrific process again in Q1.”
According to an inside finance source at Yahoo who spoke with Valleywag, they were indeed planning to wait until December. “Sounds almost like a typical corporate rumor, complete with dramatic and egregious ironies: The tipster says layoffs are planned for December 10, just four days after a multi-million-dollar company-wide Christmas party,” our own Jason Miller commented. “Merry Christmas, you’re fired. Hope you saved enough to have at least a happy New Year, cuz we’re cutting out severances. Aren’t these ice sculptures swell?”
Just because Yahoo is cutting jobs doesn’t mean they’re not trying their damnedest to stay competitive. Not only will they be investing the money they make from the Google deal (if it goes through) into their search business, but they are already doing some interesting things to set themselves apart. Recently they have started integrating SearchMonkey applications into their search results. This means that third party developers are getting their own projects implemented into the search results for average Yahoo users, which could potentially open up all kinds of doors to increased relevancy.
Yahoo has also been trying some new things to keep users more interested in their properties, such as turning themselves into something of a social network by offering new profile pages and the ability to create “friendships” with other Yahoo users. This is not without its criticism. In fact, comments by murdok readers would indicate that this is a boring and lame attempt to cash in on the growing social media trend. Time will tell if it turns out to really work to the company’s advantage. Yahoo has had failed attempts into social media in the past.
None of these things matter much to the people losing their jobs though, and they’re simply joining the masses of Internet company employees going through the same thing. Other establishments who have recently announced staff reductions include Zillow, Pandora, and Gawker to name a few that come immediately to mind.
