Yahoo! Inc has been making a lot of news off late, see: 3rd Annual Yahoo! Searchlight Awards Announced!, Yahoo!: Personalized Mobile Portal Launched and Yahoo! To Support OpenID Standard.

Now, Yahoo!'s expected layoffs have become the hot topic of speculation these days. Since, no one knows for sure how big would be the magnitude of layoffs, only estimates are being floated around. Kevin Delaney of the Wall Street Journal reports the figures to be in the tune of hundreds and “Yahoo expects to finish 2008 with about the same number of workers as …”

Yahoo! plans to layoff employees to boost its profitability, the layoffs would affect only certain areas as the company wants to narrow it's focus to a lesser number of critical areas. The NYT story quotes Diana Wong, a company spokesperson ”Yahoo plans to invest in some areas, reduce emphasis in others, and eliminate some areas of the business that don’t support the company’s priorities. Yahoo continues to attract and hire talent against the company’s key initiatives to create long-term stockholder value.”

Yahoo!'s present workforce comprises about 14,000 employees, if the rumor that 10-20% is right then, then the layoffs could very well be between 1400 – 2800 workers. And the trimmed down workforce would be to the score of 11200 – 12600.

The official pronouncement is expected to be made around Jan 29th earnings day.

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