Yahoo is restructuring its operations in Singapore, discontinuing its editorial and social media groups in favour of a method targeted on content material curation. The choice will have an effect on 17 employees members, who will depart after Might 7, as per reviews from The Edge Singapore and Straits Instances.
The layoffs comply with an analysis by Yahoo that confirmed increased engagement ranges pushed by companion content material over authentic reporting, based on Straits Instances. This shift aligns with Yahoo’s broader world technique to streamline operations and concentrate on high-engagement content material.
Affected staff (some with lengthy tenures at Yahoo) will obtain compensation barely greater than two weeks’ pay per yr of service, The Edge Singapore famous, citing an nameless supply.
In accordance with reviews, affected employees had been briefed on Tuesday final week (April 23) in regards to the modifications, and have been supplied the chance to use for brand new roles inside the firm.
Underneath its new technique, Yahoo plans to rent three curation editors and a market lead for Yahoo Information Singapore. A Yahoo spokesperson instructed Straits Instances that this strategic pivot ensures that “readers can anticipate to proceed seeing the content material they most recurrently have interaction with and revel in.”
Whereas Yahoo shouldn’t be unionised in Singapore, Straits Instances famous it had reached out to the Nationwide Trades Union Congress for feedback on the layoffs.
The newest bulletins come after Yahoo reported it anticipated to scale back the workforce of its adtech division (beforehand referred to as Yahoo For Enterprise) by almost 50% by the top of 2023. The cuts represented over 20% of the whole workforce of Yahoo, or greater than 1,600 staff. Yahoo has additionally beforehand retrenched journalists primarily based in Singapore in each 2016 and 2022.
Regardless of the shift away from authentic content material in Singapore, Yahoo information websites globally will nonetheless function a mixture of third-party and authentic content material, with the corporate affirming its dedication to investing in Asia.