AOL to lay off a third of staff
Published: November 19, 2009
NEW YORK — AOL Inc., the struggling Internet company, plans to cut about a third of its workers if its planned spinoff from Time Warner Inc. goes through.
That would amount to nearly 2,300 of the roughly 6,900 total employees.
In a securities filing Thursday, AOL said it will impose the cuts on a voluntary and involuntary basis, hoping to trim annual costs by about $300 million.
The job cuts still need approval from the new AOL board. Time Warner, the New York media conglomerate, said this week that it will spin AOL off to investors Dec. 9.
AOL, which is based in New York but also has major operations in Northern Virginia, said it will take about $200 million in charges for severance and other costs related to the restructuring.
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Reader Reactions
This is not good for the new governor. These are hard-working Americans with wives, children and mortgages. So much for using all those state surpluses to fix the roads in Northern Virginia. What was Plan B again?
You’ve got a pink slip!
I agree, it’s really just more of a paradigm shift. AOL should have jumped onto Social Networking and Web 2.0 more, but they didn’t, or didn’t do it fast enough.
Agreed. It’s not too late, but if they are going to rely on being a subscription based ISP, they’ll be out of business in time simply due to the market and changing technology.
> I wouldn’t use them as an indicator of the economy, because they are dying out anyway.
I agree, it’s really just more of a paradigm shift. AOL should have jumped onto Social Networking and Web 2.0 more, but they didn’t, or didn’t do it fast enough.
ddub28 - I believe that their “ISP” business model is probably all but gone.
A lot of people still pay AOL and use their email accounts (why I don’t know), but use another ISP (cable modem, or DSL) for their connection.
I believe their Instant Messanger (AIM) is still relavent, although most people probably use something else now, since their AIM (instant messenger) is a free service, that they depend on advertising revenue to support, if people stop using it, there goes AOL’s income.
So… it seems like they are just phasing out due to other technologies. Most likely Social Networking sites like Twitter and Face Book, and the Cell Phone Text Message boom.
It’s sad that they are having to lay people off. But kudo’s to AOL for making it as long as they did. They have outlived Prodigy and CompuServe, and many of the other ISP’s of their day.
Only people who still have to use Dial-up need it. If you have high speed internet, services like AOL are obsolete. I wouldn’t use them as an indicator of the economy, because they are dying out anyway.
Does anyone actually use AOL anymore? I haven’t since the mid-90s.
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