Yahoo Inc. will eliminate about 1,000 jobs beginning this week, or roughly 12% of its employees, the first round of cuts in a larger plan to restructure its advertising tech division amid a wave of layoffs in the industry.
The company, owned by Apollo Global Management Inc., plans to reduce headcount at its Yahoo for Business ad tech unit by almost 50% by the end of 2023, or more than 20% of the workforce at Yahoo, a company spokesperson said.
“These changes announced today are entirely within the context of creating a better business plan for that division going forward,” Chief Executive Officer Jim Lanzone said Thursday in an interview. “The company has taken many bites of the apple here in trying to make it work over the years, but as a standalone company we had to take a very honest view in how we apply our resources.”
Digital advertising providers have had to grapple with skittish customers who are concerned about the uncertain economic climate. Yahoo’s restructuring will create a new division called Yahoo Advertising, which will focus ad sales teams on the company’s properties, including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News and Yahoo Sports.
The company is “very profitable,” Lanzone said, adding that the job cuts were due more to the division’s restructuring than troubles in the ad market. “We would’ve made these changes even at the peak of the market,” he said.
Yahoo is “still hiring aggressively,” Lanzone said, and employees who lose their jobs will be considered for other roles at the company.
Axios earlier reported the job cuts.