Americas

Americas

Yahoo lays off 2,000 workers

04 April 2012 22:06 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yahoo on Wednesday announced to lay off 2,000 employees, or about 14 percent of the company’s workforce, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"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," said Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Scott Thompson in a statement.

"Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions," he said.

Yahoo, which currently employs about 14,100 people around the world, said it would save about 375 million U.S. dollars annually after the layoffs are finished later this year. It will absorb a pre-tax charge of 125 million U.S. dollars to 145 million dollars to account for severance payments.

The layoff plan announced on Wednesday is one of the largest for Yahoo in recent years. In December 2010, the company dumped 4 percent of its global workforce, around 560 employees.

Yahoo has been struggling to restore its former glory in recent years. After turning down Microsoft’s 48-billion-dollar takeover bid in 2008, Yahoo partners with the software giant on internet search and advertising, but the partnership has not lived up to expectations. On the other hand, its search engine rankings has fallen behind Microsoft’s Bing last December.

After firing Carol Bartz last September, Yahoo board appointed Thompson as the new CEO in early January. The company’s co-founder Jerry Yang, along with four other board members, resigned from the board later that month.