Yahoo is pressing forward with the “strategic workforce realignment” CEO Jerry Yang promised in [last month’s earnings call](/bus-news/article.php/3724666).
Reports are coming in from Sunnyvale today that every meeting room was filled with managers meeting with employees and handing out pink slips. The company planned to lay off about 1,000 employees.
Last month, Yang said that the company was facing “headwinds” as it entered a year of transformation. Of course, an asteroid crashed into Yang’s strategic overhaul on Feb. 1, when Microsoft went public with its unsolicited acquisition bid.
That the layoffs are happening as planned is no great surprise. Yahoo has spurned Microsoft’s bid, and is moving forward with initiatives like its ambitious mobile agenda, as we saw from its [announcements](/mobility/article.php/3727671/Yahoo+Not+Sitting+Still+on+Mobile.htm) at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this week.
Many analysts have predicted that there will be a personnel churn if Microsoft is successful in acquiring the company. They point to a clash of cultures. Quite simply, many Yahoos would never work for Microsoft. Should Microsoft go hostile in its bid, the bad blood could create an exodus.
No doubt these are heady times in the world of Yahoo. Given the precarious future of the company, it’s easy to imagine that some of the now-former employees already had one foot out the door.