Axe comes down at Yahoo

2008 has been a year Yahoo would rather forget

Yahoo has officially notified the 1,500 employees it has decided to lay off.

The company began instructing management to notify those workers whose positions were being terminated this morning.

"Saying goodbye to colleagues and friends is never easy. They all are dedicated members of our Yahoo family, who worked beside us and shared our passion," said outgoing chief executive Jerry Yang in a letter to employees.

"But as you all know, we must take actions to better perform in today’s turbulent global economy. While we’ve found efficiencies in many parts of our business, laying off employees is unfortunately unavoidable."

The layoffs follow what has been, to say the least, a hard year at Yahoo.

Already saddled with a massive reorganisation project amid the return of Yang, Yahoo's business was further complicated in February when Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer made a public buyout offer.

Yahoo's board resisted the efforts to disastrous consequences, setting off a shareholder rebellion that brought changes to the company's boardroom.

The company's stock was then sent into turmoil fuelled by the sagging economy, Yang's announced departure, and news of the impending layoffs.

As has been the theme to much of Yahoo's rough run in 2008, the layoff procedure did not go out without several very public hitches.

Early on Wednesday morning, a source leaked a copy of Yahoo's layoff instructions and scripts for management to technology industry blog Valleywag.

Later in the day, news crews flocked to the company's Silicon Valley headquarters in search of outgoing employees, prompting at least one person to compile a Flickr photo series of the crews under the tag "vultures".