P45 time
AOL is poised to axe hundreds of employees in targeted areas of its operations.
While it is obviously not good news for the unlucky staffers, some commentators have said the numbers of people set to lose their jobs are smaller than expected.
The WSJ reported that anonymous sources said the Internet veteran will sack up to ‘several thousand' workers in specific areas of its US-based business.
The firm's CEO, Tim Armstrong, reportedly signalled last week that the axe would fall on some employees.
The newspaper previously reported there will be champagne for people celebrating the firm's acquisition of The Huffington Post, while others will lose their jobs after the deal closes, as AOL tried to stage its come-back.
It is believed the people working in AOL's network group and advertising sales unit will be safe, while others working in editorial and the media products group will be affected. The axe is also apparently set to fall on jobs in India, which could bump the number of redundancies up significantly.
While the numbers sound dramatic and will undoubtedly make life harder for some people, they are not as far reaching as AOL's last restructure, when it shed around 2,300 jobs in January 2010.
Apparently Jonathan Dube, SVP of news at AOL will be among those to lose his job. He reportedly only moved to the firm in November from ABCNews.com where he was VP.
It is perhaps little surprise that the editorial side of AOL is taking the brunt of the job losses due to AOL's recent acquisition of The Huffington Post for $315m. There will clearly be some overlap of roles with co- founder Arianna Huffington confirmed to lead AOL's content efforts.
Huffington is rumoured to be planning on making some big changes, tipped to be announced soon, changing the way AOL's editorial is created and fed to consumers.
