Verizon Communications Inc came out on Wednesday with an announcement of further cutting of its jobs about 7 percent.
About 800 jobs will be laid off in media unit of Verizon, which are separate from 10,400 jobs which should be laid off by the mid of 2019 through a voluntary separation program that was announced by the company in December.
Verizon Media is comprise of AOL and Yahoo divisions and was previously known as Oath; and as of December 2018, about 11,385 employees were on the strength of Verizon Media. For the acquisition of AOL and Yahoo’s internet unit, Verizon wrote down $4.6 billion on its media business in December, and that erased about 50 percent value of the company.
To compete with effectively with Google and Facebook in advertisement market, Verizon Media remained struggling to improve the group’s digital advertising business, but despite having two web giants AOL and Yahoo in its team, the company has fallen behind its biggest rivals.
Hans Vestberg, who previously remained the head of network gear maker Ericsson, joined the Verizon as CEO in August last year, who has been struggling to make the company more profitable since he took over the charge of his assignment.
Last year the company has started a four-year cost-cutting plan of $10 billion and the current job cuttings are the parts of that strategy. In September, Verizon had offered a voluntary buyout program to 44,000 of its total employees, that was 152,300 at the end of third quarter 2018, and in December it announced that about 10,400 workers had opted for the buyout and they will be paid up to 60 week salary along with bonus and benefits which will be based upon length of their service in the organization.
Consolidation of various business units like folding of Yahoo Mail into Yahoo Home will be coming up with the job cuts.
