Yahoo! has begun with the process of lay offs as expected. The days are being hard on Yahoo! as on one hand it has tried to defend itself from being gobbled up by Microsoft for $31 per share, while on the other hand finally come the dreaded lay offs as the axe fell on some 1,000 employees, reports NYT. Other sources have put the figure to be 1100.

While there has not been any word about which employees are being targeted, different groups of employees across the company seem to be affected. Even if the lay offs are not absolutely across the board they do seem to be a bit different than what Mr. Yang had suggested, "Rather than across-the-board cuts, we will make targeted reductions."

There are reports of cuts sprawling from an entrepreneurial group in San Francisco, Brickhouse, through headquarters in Sunnyvale, and to the media and search marketing groups in Southern California.

As there was word from Yahoo! earlier that it was trying to become more focused, it seems to have taken steps in that direction viz. merged Photos with Flickr, sold off its music subscription business. At the same time there are claims by some executives that the managers have been instructed to lay off employees without cutting projects that generate revenue.

"We're making these targeted reductions in areas of our business that don't support our critical growth initiatives," said a Yahoo! spokeswoman.

There could be some expression of resentment because a lay off is far from being a pleasant experience. Some, feel that it has taken a lot of time since the issue of lay offs first surfaced about three weeks back, the confirmation was done in a week and it has taken two weeks after that for the notifications to come about. Some have been defensive about the company's top management as they feel that now the company is moving ahead fast with the new strategy.

There are also expectations that if the Yahoo! and Microsoft episode turns ugly then there could be more defections even after the lay offs.

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