Yahoo to axe \'thousands\' of jobs: report

Yahoo!is preparing to put off thousands of workers in a sweeping restructuring being launched lower than three months after CEO Scott Thompson took control, per a report yesterday.

The Dow Jones website All Things Digital said the shakeup of the struggling internet giant could come as early because the end of March and will target Yahoo's public relations and marketing division, research, and region-focused and other marginal businesses.

The layoffs "tend to number within the thousands", the web site said, citing "multiple sources" in and out the corporate.

The California company had greater than 14,000 employees on the end of 2011. It also has a lot of software contract workers whose may be affected within the shakeup.

Yahoo declined to comment directly at the story.

But in an emailed statement, the corporate said: "As we have now indicated, our leadership is engaged in a process to be able to generate significant strategic change at Yahoo, but final decisions haven't yet been made at this point."

Thompson, formerly head of mobile payments firm PayPal, became chief executive first and foremost of January promising urgent action to show the corporate around.

He came in after many months of turmoil on the top of management over the company's direction, including deadlocked talks over possibly selling off the company's valuable assets in China and Japan.

Meanwhile the company's earnings also suffered, angering shareholders.

Operations income was up 3.5 percent in 2011 to US$800 million, but net earnings fell 14.6 percent to $1.06 billion, and earnings per share for the year fell to 82 cents from 90 cents.

The scoop of the looming restructuring Monday came within the wake of a sweeping shakeup of the 17-year-old firm's board of directors.

Two weeks after Thompson was recruited, Yahoo co-founder and previous chief executive Jerry Yang resigned from the board of directors. a couple of weeks later the chairman and 3 other directors said they might step down, opening the best way for Thompson's agenda.

- AFP