Yahoo lay-off affects India ops, pink slips given to most in the team
The company has said it will reduce the workforce of the former Yahoo For Business division by nearly 50% by the end of 2023; nearly 1,000 employees will be asked to go this week
Yahoo has said it will be laying off 20% of its workforce and restructure its ad tech division. Employees in its India division are also being asked to go.
Nearly 1,000 employees will be given the pink slips this week.
In a statement, Yahoo said: "We are transforming our ad tech division, Yahoo for Business, to set it up for long-term success. Over several years, the strategy of our ads business was to compete in the ad tech industry by offering a 'unified stack' consisting of our Demand Side Platform (DSP), Supply Side Platform (SSP) and Native platforms. Despite many years of effort and investment, this strategy was not profitable and struggled to live up to our high standards across the entire stack.
Today, we are narrowing our focus and future investments solely on our flagship DSP business, which has a strong market position and high-growth potential. The new division will be called, simply, Yahoo Advertising. In redoubling our efforts on the DSP on an omni-channel basis, we will prioritize support for our top global customers and re-launch dedicated ad sales teams towards Yahoo's owned & operated properties (including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, and more). At the same time, we will sunset our SSP, while fully shifting our Native efforts to the 30-year partnership with Taboola that was announced in November.
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 (over 20% of the total workforce of Yahoo, Inc.), including nearly 1,000 employees this week. 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."
Some reports say employees were informed on Thursday that 12% staffers will be given the pink slip by the end of the day.
Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone has said that the layoffs were not due to economic issues but rather to strengthen the Yahoo for Business advertising unit.
