Search engine giant Yahoo is reportedly axing its editorial and social media teams in Singapore.
According to a news report by The Edge Singapore, 17 employees will be leaving the digital news publication by May 7, and have previously met with a human resources representative on April 23.
Simon Wheeler, Yahoo’s senior director of content for Australia and Southeast Asia, was reported to be present at the meetings.
Retrenched employees were told that the company is changing its editorial strategy and will no longer create original content from Singapore, and they can apply for new roles within the organisation. It is worth noting that all jobs posted are performed remotely.
According to an anonymous source, affected staff will receive slightly more than two weeks’ pay per year of service.
Yahoo will hire three “curation editors” and a market lead for Yahoo News Singapore under its new strategy, which will focus on syndicated content. Newsrooms contributing syndicated content to Yahoo include HuffPost, AFP News, Reuters, EdgeProp and The Edge Singapore, among others.
A Yahoo spokesperson told The Straits Times that the company is shifting its editorial strategy to better align with strategic priorities for Yahoo Singapore.
“Readers can expect to continue seeing the content they most regularly engage with and enjoy. We remain focused on delivering a diverse selection of high-quality and engaging news, lifestyle and finance content, from local and international sources,” said the spokesperson.
Employees were caught off guard by the layoffs
The Edge Singapore understands that Yahoo holds “open houses” monthly, where leaders share business updates.
However, some employees who were affected shared that they were thrown off by the news, as there was no indication then that the company would be enacting a fresh round of layoffs in Singapore.
We didn’t expect these [layoffs] and it happened at a weird time in April. For us, everything has been business as usual and we didn’t hear any news of a possible retrenchment.
We did hear of a retrenchment round in Yahoo US a couple of months ago and did think that some markets that did not do well may face the same consequences.
An employee who spoke to The Edge Singapore on the layoffs
Previously, Yahoo laid off seven journalists based in Singapore in 2022, following their last reported retrenchment exercise in 2016. The Straits Times has also shared that Yahoo is not unionised in the city-state.
Separately, in February 2023, the US media giant said it aims to eliminate about 1,000 jobs or roughly 12 per cent of its headcount. That was the first round of cuts in a larger plan to restructure its advertising tech division.
Yahoo was known as the pioneering search engine, and the default web portal for many before Google exerted its dominance. The company changed its ownership multiple times, first by US telco Verizon, which took it private in 2017 and sold it for US$5 billion in 2021 to private equity firm Apollo Global.
Featured Image Credit: Yahoo via LinkedIn
