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发帖数: 1034 | 1 Posted 15 hours ago by Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden)
Just ahead of its Q3 earnings, Yahoo is laying people off in its
international business. Specifically, it is downsizing its software
development center in Bangalore, India. We understand that 400 people,
mainly working in product engineering, have been affected.
Yahoo has issued a statement to us confirming “consolidation” into fewer
offices:
“As we ensure that Yahoo is on a path of sustainable growth, we’re looking
at ways to achieve greater efficiency, collaboration and innovation across
our business…To this effect, we’re making some changes to the way we
operate in Bangalore leading to consolidation of certain teams into fewer
offices. Yahoo will continue to have a presence in India and Bangalore
remains an important office.”
Earlier today one local blog, The Next Big What, pegged the number at around
2,000 employees, which would have been a big deal if it were correct,
ranking up with Yahoo’s biggest-ever workforce reductions (the last 2,000
round was in 2012, under previous CEO Scott Thompson). But at 400, the
number is some ways smaller than that, if still a significant amount, and a
big deal especially to those affected. Prior to today, Yahoo employed about
1,100 people in the country, out of 12,000 globally.
India is the only country being affected with today’s layoffs.
As with Yahoo’s closure of its offices in Carlsbad, California, last month,
the company is making relocation offers to some of the people being
affected, with the aim to bring software engineers closer to the company’s
Sunnyvale, California, operations. Others are reportedly getting between
five and 10 months of redundancy pay. The layoffs will take effect November
7, one month from today.
Meanwhile, there are currently five job ads posted for Yahoo roles in India,
four of which were listed last month (and one that’s been there for over a
year).
India — one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world today — has
been both a target for Yahoo services as well as a place where Yahoo has
developed its business.
The company has launched services specifically targeting mobile consumers in
the country but it has also found that some, such as this stab at a social
network and an entertainment portal, have not lived up to expectations and
have been shut down.
On the other hand, Yahoo has invested in building out operations in India,
specifically tapping into software engineering expertise in the country.
That has also more recently also started to extend into CEO Marissa Mayer’s
extensive acquisitions play to build up Yahoo’s talent and product pool.
The news comes less than two weeks after Yahoo announced that it would
acquire Bangalore-based Bookpad, its first acquisition in India. Bookpad
makes file editing and collaboration software.
Nevertheless, it is at the same time not too surprising to see these layoffs
when you consider the wider role that India is contributing to Yahoo’s
bottom line, and also the company’s bigger push for collaborative working.
Last quarter, Yahoo disappointed Wall Street with revenues and earnings per
share that both missed analyst estimates. Right now, Asia remains a far
smaller part of Yahoo’s business than the U.S. Of the $1.04 billion Yahoo
posted in revenues in Q2, $177 million came from Asia, while $775 million
came from North America. Indeed, Yahoo’s biggest benefits when it comes to
Asia has been in its investments there, specifically around its stake in
recently listed Alibaba.
At the same time, Mayer made it clear a while back that she favors the kind
of synergy and development that comes from people working side-by-side. Now
that line of thinking is taking a more geographically focused turn.
Updated with more accurate numbers of employees affected and other details. |
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