Yahoo To Slash 2,000 Staff, More To Come

Yahoo is preparing to lay off 2,000 employees this afternoon amid warnings they may not be the last to lose their jobs.

Sources told AllThingsD that the unfortunate staff are likely to be made redundant in the next couple of days, most likely when the US markets open today.

More to come

The job losses will occur in all areas of the company, but its product division is likely to be hit the hardest, along with Yahoo’s local businesses and marketing and research divisions. It remains unclear how many general and administrative staff will be affected.

Yahoo’s media units will bear some of the damage, but not as badly, while the fates of Right Media and APT, Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, and its search division is still to be decided as a sale is contemplated. This could result in many staff remaining in employment

However, it is believed that the cuts will be the first of many as Yahoo attempts to restructure its business. New CEO Scott Thompson, who was appointed in January, is in favour of streamlining the company’s operations, meaning that more of its 14,000 strong workforce could be at risk.

Yahoo has struggled in recent years in the face of competition from rivals such as Google, with Microsoft failing with a bid to buy it for £28.2 billion in 2009. However, Microsoft was rumoured to be considering a renewed attempt to take control last year.

The Silicon Valley-based firm’s problems have persisted and were compounded earlier today when Facebook announced that it was going to sue Yahoo for infringing on its patents. The social network took legal action after Yahoo sued it last month, claiming Facebook had infringed on more than 10 of its patents, relating to privacy, advertising and messaging.

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