Yahoo has just announced that it is firing another 2,000 people in a continuing restructuring effort.
“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate,” the company said in a statement.
According to Yahoo, it has around 14,000 employees so a loss of 2,000 employees represents a little more than 15% of its workforce.
The move will save it approximately $375 million.
Shares of Yahoo are up fractional on the news on an otherwise down day for the markets.
It’s hard to believe they employed that many people in the first place. What do all of those people do, anyway?
Overheard at Yahoo HQ:
“Are some of us getting fired?”
“Yeah, Google it.”
John
“What do all of those people do, anyway?”
Decide which other employees to fire
$ 375 mil divided by 2,000 is $ 187k.
I’m sure the people being fired do not make $ 187k a year (salary, benefits, expenses)
They must be figuring this over a number of years (3-5 yrs).
The Changing World Of Search – Plain & Simple “The World Has Gone Generic”
this says at least as much about microsoft that wanted to buy this piece of garbage.
if people weren’t attached to their old yahoo email addresses there would be no yahoo at all. early on 1996 they bought geocities which was actually the first facebook but they screwed it up so badly that they ended up shutting it down a couple of years ago. what do they actually have except several third rate news services?
They should have fired Jerry Yang, many years ago and none of this would be happening today, one of the worst business mistakes of all time.
My “BullS” site is better than Yahoo.
My “BullS” site is better than Yahoo and we are always hiring quality Creative breathing organisms.
Terry Semel was the one who fucked it up beyond the point of no return – when he tried to turn it into a “media” company instead of focusing on search
Hindsight being 20/20, of course
As for the firing..
Still leaves 12,000 employeees; still have the ratio of about 3 people doing 1 job
Is firing the same as being made redundant?
If a company “fired” 2000 employees how many of those former employees would file wrongful termination and other claims. It would be an insane thing to do.
Silly headline.
Agree with Berryhill. What do all those people do?
The situation is far worse with Google. Absurdly large numbers of smart people on the payroll paid to do essentially nothing (i.e. nothing of any serious import to the balance sheet: their presence or absence has no effect on the bottom line). It only becomes obvious when the company slows down that they are just an expense. When the company is doing well, of course they’re touted as an asset.
But this is how successful companies are. ITC is just an extreme example. Microsoft has been like this for decades. These companies become welfare states.
memst
I don’t think those that lost their jobs, care if you call it fired, downsizing, consolidation or any other nice word you want to use.
Those employees had a paycheck, now they don’t
Sucks for them
Just realized I had comment that seemsed to have got lost – so this might be possibly a bit of redundancy 🙂
Regarding the John Berryhill statement: “What do all (Yahoo) of those people do, anyway?”
My candid answer:
they are integral parts of an international diversified mismanagement company with 18 layers of mismanagement that refuses to renew domains they aquire via acquisitions like Geocities (as RaTHead reminds us of), such as my CapitolHill.com I acquired in 2004 in the auctions – a pure biproduct of corporate socialism (liferism) – i.e. otherwise known as fortune 1000 companies.
When an employee is terminated for cause (“fired”) she doesn’t get severence. She has to sue the company for what she thinks she deserves.
Big difference from being made redundant.