Yahoo to cut more than 20% of its workforce – about 1,600 employees

Yahoo has announced it plans to cut more than 20% of its workforce; that is, about 1,600 employees. The company explained that it had to take this step as part of a large-scale restructuring of its advertising technology division.

As CNN reports, the company has explained that this layoff program will affect nearly 50% of Yahoo's ad technology workforce by the end of this year, including about 1,000 workers who will be laid off this week.

“Given the new focus of the new Yahoo Advertising group, we will reduce the workforce of the former Yahoo for Business division by nearly 50% by the end of 2023,” a Yahoo spokesperson told CNBC.

“These decisions are never easy, but we believe these changes will simplify and strengthen our advertising business for the long run, while enabling Yahoo to deliver better value to our customers and partners,” the Yahoo spokesperson added.

Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone told Axios that these changes will be "tremendously beneficial for the profitability of Yahoo overall,"  and will enable the company to invest more in other areas of its business that are profitable.

The company added that these personnel changes will help the company focus its efforts on the new ad platform and increase investments there.

Also, a Yahoo representative  said the company will provide severance pay and severance assistance to the laid-off employees, but did not provide further details.

In 2021, Yahoo acquired Apollo Global Management investment company for $5 billion. According to PitchBook, Yahoo had 10,000 employees at the time.

Due to a number of reasons, many IT companies have started mass layoffs recently. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, HP, Vimeo, IBM, Xiaomi, Meta, and many other companies have announced layoffs.

At Meta Platforms, as it turns out, middle managers may also be laid off; and they will be offered either to move to specific job duties or to leave the company. As Bloomberg writes, instead of managing and overseeing, many middle managers are now asked to write code, design, do research, etc.