As part of a major restructuring, Yahoo has planned to lay off more than 20 percent of its workforce by the end of this year.
There are currently 8,600 people working for the company, but nearly 1,000 employees are expected to be affected by the cuts over the next few days.
Yahoo shares the struggle of many other tech companies having to make job cuts who are also battling high inflation and rising interest rates.
In an interview with Axios, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said that the changes will be “ “tremendously beneficial for the profitability of Yahoo overall,” and will allow the company “to go on offense” and invest more in other parts of its business that are profitable.
Commenting on the recent tech layoffs, Lauren Thomas, Glassdoor’s UK Economist says:
“Companies have slowed hiring, with job vacancies continuing to fall. Data from Fishbowl by Glassdoor also suggests a rise in hiring freezes, with discussion of the topic increasing over 400 percent in the second half of 2022. Layoffs are another story: despite the reports of mass layoffs in tech, ONS data shows redundancies remain below their pre-pandemic norm. Glassdoor’s data shows concern about layoffs is concentrated amongst tech employees, with Jan 2023 mentions up 262 percent year-on-year.
“However, those in other industries seem less worried, with mentions for all workers only increasing 51 percent year-on-year. Salaries are always a hot topic for workers, but there’s no doubt employees are concerned about their pay keeping up with today’s rising prices – discussion of inflation surged 188 percent from Jan 2022 to Jan 2023. And with salaries continuing to fall below inflation despite highs in nominal growth, it’s no wonder they’re worried.”
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.