AOL Layoffs Begin: 1,200 Jobs SLASHED

SAN FRANCISCO — The struggling Internet company AOL was laying off up to 1,200 workers this week because it didn't get enough volunteers to accept buyouts.

AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose said Monday that only 1,100 had volunteered to leave. That means AOL would need to shed up to 1,200 positions to reach its previously announced reduction target of up to 2,300, or about a third of its work force.

The cuts, which were on top of thousands of positions shed in recent years, came as AOL separated from Time Warner Inc. last month. AOL acquired Time Warner at the height of the dot-com boom in 2001, but the combination proved disastrous, prompting Time Warner to spin AOL off as a separate company.

In recent years, the company formerly known as America Online has been trying to reinvent itself as a content and advertising company as the legacy dial-up Internet access business that made the company famous steadily declined. But AOL has struggled in that transformation as its advertising revenue has failed to offset the drop in revenue from the dial-up business.

AOL was laying off some employees in the U.S. on Monday, though most will occur on Wednesday, Primrose said. She also said the company started laying off employees in Europe on Monday and planned to close offices in Spain and Sweden, though it will continue to have employees working in Sweden at its ad-serving company, Adtech AG. No further details were immediately available on where the U.S. reductions were occurring.

"We made difficult decisions about products and our profitability profile in different markets and made the decisions we believe will best position AOL to be a long-term, successful company going forward," Primrose said.

The cuts will leave AOL at less than a quarter the size it was at its peak in 2004, when it had more than 20,000 employees. Before the latest layoffs and buyouts, AOL had about 6,900 employees.

AOL said in November it would take $200 million in charges for severance and restructuring-related costs.

AOL shares rose 29 cents, or 1.1 percent, to close at $25.97 Monday.

Comments

[Bruckley]

03:15 PM on 01/12/2010

Can't say I'm going to shed a tear over this.

[Acolyte]

02:15 PM on 01/12/2010

AOL had the worst, most invasive browser of all times. Slow to no end, weird heart-shaped buttons and a chat program that choked if you chatted with more than one person. Terrible. I opted for the Yahoo! Pager instead (later became Yahoo IM)

[jws2346]

02:11 PM on 01/12/2010

Oh noes, AOL layin' peeps off. I thin the days of entities like AOL are numbered, their time has passed. I'M certainly not knocking them, I think they provided a much needed service at the time.

[Acolyte]

02:10 PM on 01/12/2010

Ummm... I thought AOL was gone.

[DeeDubya]

01:37 PM on 01/12/2010

Bummer. At least we still have CompuServe and Netscape 1.0.

Right? Right?

Awwwwww!!!!!

[Talamasca]

01:35 PM on 01/12/2010

Isn't 1,200 the total number of customers they have left?

[zombywulf]

01:21 PM on 01/12/2010

Hopefully AoheLL will die out completely the sooner the better

[editorjuno]

12:47 PM on 01/12/2010

A-O-who?

[AllShookUp]

01:32 PM on 01/12/2010

A-O-Hole?

[Mildmannered]

12:43 PM on 01/12/2010

Mr. President, the "jobs" recession is not over. Second stimulus package needed, focusing on infrastructure and local/state government support.

[ChangeurMind]

12:39 PM on 01/12/2010

Another misleading headline.... "AOL firing 1,200 in USA and hiring them in Asia."

[Trish Miller]

12:54 PM on 01/12/2010

actually what they are doing this time is using a company based in the U.S, that hires customer service workers to work from home. they signed a contract with this company months ago & have been training people in this company since August or September.

[lilipilicious]

12:36 PM on 01/12/2010

AOL is gonna be slammed with unemployment claims (that they have to pay by the way) and probably all sorts of other lawsuits etc. That'll cost them a lot of money.

I really dont understand why people keep losing their jobs, if the stimulus money and bail out money were put in there to prevent that? Oh, I forgot, the bail out didnt really help anyone, except for bank execs. But still, the fact that most people are not outraged by this, baffles me.

[Acolyte]

02:11 PM on 01/12/2010

The stimulus went to multi-million dollar exec bonuses... Obama's true constituents.

[CNYObamaFan]

12:30 PM on 01/12/2010

AOL had 2300 employees? Who the heII still uses aol?

[AllShookUp]

01:34 PM on 01/12/2010

I have no idea.

[fopplssiegeparty]

11:23 AM on 01/12/2010

C'mon, Folks! They just want to keep the employee/customer ratio closer to 1:1.

[Krumbum]

11:11 AM on 01/12/2010

I hate AOL with a passion. I had them for years, back in the day when there really was no alternative when one lived in the sticks. They held their rural base hostage at 21.95 a month for nearly a decade. Their business practices were dubious--canceling the service was a nightmare. You had to call and cancel their premium services separately, even if you no longer had AOL (so they might keep charging you for virus protection on a nonexistent account).

AOL is a company whose customers told them for decades that they hated them but didn't have any alternative. Instead of taking the warning and improving, AOL went with the "our customers don't have a choice model."

AOL's extinction is long, long overdue. I'll hoist a bottle of champagne when the rest of their employees get pink slips. Harsh, yes, but this company stole from me.

[kathy001]

12:53 PM on 01/12/2010

I agree with everything you said. In addition, how in the world did AOL not manage to prepare for High Speed Internet when they were working directly with Time Warner? TW Cable was preparing for High Speed Internet even before they merged with AOL. Did AOL actually think that people would continue to pay for their lousy service rather than spend a few more dollars for a service that actually works?

I feel sorry for their employees on some level but it's hard to have a whole lot of sympathy for people who routinely blew me off when I called in for assistance.

[ljblinddog]

11:10 AM on 01/12/2010

I use AOL like an old broom closet (a back up for mail). Kind of embarassing for someone who is cool enough to post on the HP. These layoffs are a sgn of the times. Exxon laid of 25 Congressmen. I heard that Ben is going to lay off Jerry, and NBC is going to drop the "C".

Meanwhile, the former Balck Water is doing great. Killing children in Afghanistan is turning into a growth industry. Coal is doing well. Banks are going to stop lending. Medical insurance companies are telling their customers to stop complaining and just run it under the tap.