SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. is reducing its workforce by 4 percent as it hands out 600 layoff notices for the holidays.
The job cuts announced Tuesday follow weeks of speculation about whether a long-running financial funk would spur Yahoo to trim its payroll before the new year. Reports of Yahoo’s layoff plans surfaced a month ago on two popular technology blogs, TechCrunch and All Things Digital.
This marks the fourth time in three years that Yahoo has resorted to mass firings to boost its earnings.
The company is under pressure to cut costs because its revenue has risen by less than 2 percent this year, and chief executive Carol Bartz has promised to increase Yahoo’s operating profit margin to as much as 24 percent by 2013. The margin stood at about 12 percent through the first nine months of this year.
“Today’s personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace,” the company said in a statement.
Although Yahoo clearly needed to tighten its belt to widen its profit margin, the timing of the layoffs was horrible, said Gleacher & Co. analyst Yun Kim. “I don’t think this is going to score them any PR points,” he said.
Yahoo’s recurring layoffs haven’t been enough to lift its stock price, which has been sagging since the company balked at a takeover bid from Microsoft Corp. in 2008. Yahoo shares fell 7 cents Tuesday to close at $16.63.
