Yahoo will immediately begin laying off 2,000 employees, the company said in a statement.
“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 Scott Thomson, CEO of Yahoo in a statement. “We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities.” Thompson joined Yahoo as CEO Jan. 9.
Yahoo did not specify from which divisions the 2,000 employees would come from.
The layoffs come after several months of changes for executives at Yahoo. In December, Yahoo’s CMO and EVP Elisa Steele left the company. At the time, a Yahoo spokeswoman told Direct Marketing News that Stelle left the company “as part of the plan she put in place to focus marketing at the company on revenue as Yahoo goes through this period of strategic review.” On Sept. 6, Carol Bartz was removed from her position as Yahoo’s CEO.
Yahoo has in recent years become less of a presence in major online growth areas. For instance, although online ad revenue in the U.S. is expected to grow 23.3% to $39.5 billion this year, according to research by eMarketer, Yahoo has struggled to hang onto its share of the market. Yahoo’s share of about $32 billion in U.S. online ad revenue fell to 9.5% in 2011. In 2009, eMarketer said, Yahoo’s share was about 15.7%. In 2012, analysts estimated that percentage would drop to just 7.4%.
Officials at Yahoo were not immediately available for comment, said Dana Lengleek, director of corporate communications at Yahoo.
