IT Layoffs 2023: Yahoo Latest Firm to Join Sacking Spree, Company to Fire 20% of Employees

According to Yahoo, the decision will allow the company to concentrate its efforts and financial resources on its demand-side platform, which is its primary ad business.

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New Delhi: This year, a number of businesses, including Amazon and Google, have let go of thousands of employees. Yahoo is the next in this long series. As part of a significant restructuring of its ad tech division, Yahoo on Thursday said that it has opted to lay off more than 20 percent of the total workforce, joining other internet titans in the move. By the end of the year, this round of layoffs will affect nearly half of the ad tech workforce, including nearly 1,000 workers this week, the business said.

According to Yahoo, the decision will allow the company to concentrate its efforts and financial resources on its demand-side platform, or DSP, which is its primary ad business. Apollo Global Management, a private equity group, acquired the business in 2021 after purchasing Yahoo for $5 billion. ()

According to Reuters, the company's round of layoffs occurs at a time when many advertisers are reducing their marketing budgets as a result of record-high inflation rates and worries about a recession. ()

The news was initially reported by Axios, which predicted that the layoffs will alter Yahoo's long-running strategy of directly challenging Google and Meta for supremacy in digital advertising. Jim Lanzone, the CEO of Yahoo, claimed that strategy shifts rather than financial difficulties led to layoffs.

The report quotes Lanzone as saying that these layoffs will be "very advantageous for the overall profitability of Yahoo." It will enable the organisation to make greater investments in other lucrative business ventures.

It stated that 14 percent of the company's anticipated employment cutbacks will be made in this phase, with the remaining 8% or more taking place in the second half of the year. Although Lanzone did not provide an exact number of people who would be affected, she did state that more than 50% of the current staff of the ad tech section would be affected.