America Online plans to trim just over 700 employees at its Northern Virginia headquarters by the end of the year, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to internetnews.com.
The cost cutting measure represents about 5 percent of the ISP’s overall U.S. employee base of about 13,000. Some 5,000 are employed in AOL’s headquarters in Virginia.
An AOL spokesman declined comment on the layoffs, which was first reported by The Washington Post. AOL’s parent company, Time Warner is slated to release its third quarter earnings tomorrow. Analysts and company observers expect discussion to eventually hit on AOL’s subscriber numbers, which have ebbed as more customers migrate from its dial-up service to broadband providers.
In the last year, for example, roughly 3 million subscribers left the ISP’s rolls of about 26 million subscribers. The company has been in turnaround mode for the past two years, when job cuts hit the ISP the hardest.
This announcement would mark the first major reduction in force at the company all year.