Verizon-Yahoo Merger Means 2,100 Employees Could Get the Axe
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Verizon will lay off approximately 2,000 employees when the company officially takes over Yahoo this week.
Up to 1,000 employees at AOL and Yahoo could be shown the door as Verizon combs through overlapping positions that include marketing, HR and administration, Re/Code reported. A source familiar with the plan told TechCrunch that approximately 15 percent – equivalent to 2,100 seats – of AOL/Yahoo could be cut.
Verizon plans to combine Yahoo’s internet properties with that of AOL, which the carrier bought for $4.4 billion in 2015. Verizon is battling to compete with Facebook and Alphabet’s Google in digital advertising and is looking to use Yahoo’s various Internet tools to drive revenue. The discussed layoffs impact employees deemed redundant in the combined Verizon/AOL unit.
The New York Times noted that Yahoo employees’ severance payouts increased as a result of the company’s share price rising by $5.16 after its shareholders approved the deal last week. CEO Marissa Mayer earned $264 million with the company as a result of stock prices, the newspaper said.
The $4.48 billion acquisition of Yahoo’s internet unit finalizes Tuesday, after reaching final approval from Yahoo shareholders. The initial price of the deal was reduced by $350 million after Yahoo disclosed that hackers had breached more than 1 billion of its user accounts. Yahoo has cut 46 percent of its employees since its stock price peaked in 2013.
Microsoft made a $45 billion bid for Yahoo in 2008, and some analysts valued the company at $125 billion in 2000.
