Yahoo has announced a further 5% staff cut on the same day as
first quarter financial results, but says the two are not
linked.
The announcement comes just months after Yahoo announced a 10%
reduction in staff.
Yahoo said most of the employees affected by the latest cuts
will be notified within two weeks.
Yahoo reported first quarter revenues of $1,58m - a decrease of
13% from the first quarter of 2008.
Although below expectations, the results were far better than
those for the
last quarter of 2008, in which Yahoo reported a net loss of
$303m.
Carol Bartz, who took over as chief executive in January, said
an economy-driven decline in advertising spending had depressed
results more than some analysts had expected.
She said the reduction of around 600 jobs is not in response to
market conditions, but linked to decisions about what properties
Yahoo could live without, according to the
Financial Times.
Blake Jorgensen, the outgoing chief financial officer, said many
of the job cuts would be in global engineering and product teams
and would enable Yahoo to hire staff in other areas of the
business.
Although Yahoo's revenue fell below analyst expectations,
reduced capital expenditure and other savings put cash flow
slightly above expectations.
"Yahoo is not immune to the ongoing economic downturn, but
careful cost management in the first quarter allowed our operating
cash flow to come in near the high end of our outlook range," said
Bartz.
Net income fell to $118m, or 8 cents a share, from $537m and 37
cents a share in the same period a year ago.
Yahoo expects second-quarter revenue of roughly $1.52bn and
income from operations of about $85m.
However, Bartz said the savings from the job cuts and reduced
capital expenditure would not necessarily boost profits as she
intends to invest in strengthening the company is some areas.
Bartz said she expects online brand advertising to pick up again
as the economy improved and revenue per search to improve as online
spending returned to normal.