Yahoo plans to lay off more than 20% of its total workforce as part of a major restructuring of its ad tech division, the company said Thursday.
The cuts will impact nearly 50% of Yahoo’s ad tech employees by the end of this year, including nearly 1,000 employees this week, the company said. Axios, which first reported the news, estimates that 1,600 employees will be let go by the end of 2023.
The move will help Yahoo focus on its flagship ad business called DSP, or demand-side platform, the company said. Private equity firm Apollo Global Management acquired 90% of Yahoo from Verizon for $5 billion in September 2021.
The Yahoo for Business segment’s strategy “struggled to live up to our high standards across the entire stack,” a Yahoo spokesperson told CNBC on Thursday. “Given the new focus of the new Yahoo Advertising group, we will reduce the workforce of the former Yahoo for Business division by nearly 50% by the end of 2023.”
Yahoo is the latest tech company to announce significant layoffs in 2023. In January, Google’s parent company Alphabet laid off 12,000 workers, or about 12% of its workforce; and Meta, Facebook’s parent company, cut 11,000 jobs in November.
