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Yahoo to chop 2,000 more jobs

David Gura Apr 4, 2012

Stacey Vanek Smith: Shares of Yahoo are down this morning. The Internet giant is handing out 2,000 pink slips today. It’s the sixth mass layoff for the tech company in just the past four years. This time the company is trimming about 15 percent of its workforce. But is downsizing the solution to what ails the company?

Marketplace’s David Gura reports.


David Gura: Yahoo has been struggling, but analyst Clay Moran says he’s not convinced more layoffs will do much. He’s an analyst with The Benchmark Company.

Clay Moran: It hasn’t, in the past, really moved the needle for the company in regards to changing the revenue growth or enhancing the company’s competitive position.

Yahoo has a new CEO, and Moran says he has to grapple with some big questions.

Moran: How do I get this company moving forward? How do I grow revenue? Where do we go to focus our resources?

Those aren’t new questions. Here’s analyst Rob Enderle:

Rob Enderle: Yahoo is in the shape it’s in today because they lost track of who they were.

Years ago, Yahoo seemed poised to be the go-to site for search, web navigation and social media. But Enderle says the company got distracted by Google’s success, and it lost ground to sites like Facebook.

Enderle: A series of just textbook mistakes.

Yahoo will have to find its focus fast. It’s being challenged by people within the organization who want the company to reinvent itself. Some are even suggesting Yahoo should put itself up for sale. And it’s also facing challenges from outside the company. Yahoo and Facebook are fighting in court over major technology.

I’m David Gura, for Marketplace.

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