Business Insider says Yahoo is planning to reduce its staff by more than 1,000 employees. The layoffs would represent 10 percent of the company’s total staff, with cuts across all divisions.
Sources told Business Insider that the layoffs could come as early as this month.
Just this week, Yahoo shuttered Yahoo Screens, its video service that hosted original and syndicated programming like “Community” and NFL content — more evidence that the company is undergoing major restructuring to cut costs.
While the cuts are expected to affect all parts of the company, Yahoo’s media business, European operations, and platforms-technology group, which includes the technology that supports the company’s services, could be particularly hit in the restructuring. Biz Carson, Business Insider
The Business Insider story comes on the heels of a letter from hedge fund and Yahoo shareholder Starboard Value LP, sent to Yahoo’s board threatening a proxy battle if Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was not removed from her position.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Starboard’s letter claimed that Yahoo investors have lost confidence in the company’s management and that “dramatically different thinking” and “significant changes across all aspects of the business starting at the board level” would be needed to turn the company around.
“Yahoo’s board may decide to let Ms. Mayer propose her new plan to streamline Yahoo’s business, expected to reduce the company’s head count and eliminate costly areas of the business such as online video,” write Wall Street Journal reporters Douglas MacMillan and David Benoit. Mayer is expected to deliver Yahoo’s 4Q 2015 earnings report later this month.
Business Insider says that Yahoo has taken a number of cost-cutting measures recently, including letting go 14 percent of its staff over the last year, cutting back production studio operations and trying to unload real estate near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters.
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