Bangalore: Yahoo’s Bangalore software development center was reduced to 250 on Tuesday, after Yahoo fired an estimated 400 employees. An inside estimate put the figure at a whopping 2,000. The personnel remaining are expected to manage the product engineering functions.
It is learnt that the software engineers, reporting directly to their bosses in USA were all fired, albeit with healthy packages ranging from 10 months to 5 years salary. Apparently the firing is taking place in phases and is expected to go on for a couple of more days at least.
Yahoo officially refused to admit the extent of sacking that took place on Tuesday, but has reasoned that it was mainly for ensuring that Yahoo remains on a path of sustainable growth.
An official statement issued via email said the company was looking at ways to achieve “greater efficiency, collaboration and innovation across our business”. The company was aiming at making “some changes” to the way it operated in Bangalore “leading to consolidation of certain teams in fewer offices”. It also said that Yahoo would continue to be present in India and “and Bangalore remains an important office”.
Employees are tense. Their posh facility at Embassy Golf Links (EGL) Business Park off Indiranagar-Koramangala intermediate ring road, is no more a haven.
Yahoo India employees now feel that although the golden handshake has not been offered to them, “it would come sometime or the other, going by the trend.”
According to sources within the company the sacked employees have been allowed one month’s notice, after which they have been offered basic salaries ranging from five years to ten months, depending on the seniority of the employees. Their last working day is scheduled to be November 7.
The axe fell within two weeks of Yahoo announcing plans of acquiring Bangalore-based Bookpad which develops file editing and collaboration software.
There is a feeling that the sacking was a part of the company viewing Asia being a much smaller part of Yahoo’s operations than the US.
The company posted a mere $177 million of its $1.04 billion in the second quarter while a larger chunk to the tune of $775 million came from North America.
