Close on the heels of a new CEO taking charge at Yahoo Inc, the Internet giant is likely to cut thousands of jobs as part of a major restructuring exercise of its operations, a report has said.
Amid the likelihood of major job cuts in the company’s research unit, the Indian-origin head of Yahoo Labs, Mr Prabhakar Raghavan, may also leave the company, the Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.
“Yahoo Chief Executive, Mr Scott Thompson, is preparing for a major restructuring of the Internet giant’s operations, likely including thousands of layoffs,” the report said.
Yahoo had appointed Mr Thompson, formerly head of eBay’s PayPal unit, as the new CEO in January, months after the post got empty after Ms Carol Bartz’s departure in September 2011.
The report said that most of the changes at Yahoo, which could be announced as soon as the end of this month, could be related to its products division and other areas where it has struggled.
Public relations and marketing, research, are among those considered as potential targets of the company.
“Our leadership is engaged in a process that will generate significant strategic change at Yahoo, but final decisions have not yet been made at this point. Beyond that, we will not comment,” the report quoted a Yahoo spokesperson as saying.
The report further said that the new CEO was widely looking across Yahoo in order to jump-start what largely has been a failed turnaround under previous leadership.
Mr Thompson has also played a role in re-evaluating how Yahoo should approach the sale of its Asian assets back to its partners there.
Yahoo recently hired Boston Consulting Group to suggest ways to focus on “growth” initiatives and to help determine the best path to move forward.