More tech layoffs as Yahoo cuts over 1,000 jobs

Another round of layoffs is hitting the tech industry as Yahoo becomes the latest company to cut its workforce. 

The long-standing tech company says that 20% of its workforce, or about 1,700 employees, will be let go during a major restructuring that will 1,000 members of staff be let go this week alone.

Cuts will mainly be affecting the company’s ad tech business which has struggled to compete with digital advertising giants Google and Meta and will be recreated in a new division called Yahoo Advertising.

A spokesperson for the company who spoke the BBC said: ‘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.’ 

Though the exact number and impact on Yahoo UK staff is not known, a companies house filing from December 2021 lists the ‘average monthly number of staff’ employed by the company as 279. 

Many companies from across the tech sector have announced layoffs in recent weeks as the industry seeks to address slowing growth after a period of rapid expansion during the pandemic. 

Recently, takeaway platform Deliveroo also said it would be saying goodbye to about 350 employees with the UK business the worst hit. 

Last month, Google’s parent company Alphabet announced that around 12,000 jobs would be cut whilst music streaming service Spotify said it would be letting go of about 600 people. Microsoft has also laid off about 5% of its workforce whilst Meta, Amazon, Dell, PayPal, Zoom and Twitter have also cut thousands of staff. 

Yahoo was founded in California in 1994 and was once the most popular website in the US and one of the top visited in the world before a decline and purchase by Verizon in 2017. A 90% share of the new Yahoo was then bought by Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm, in 2021 under a $5bn deal.

Photo by Jaimie Harmsen