The winds of the economic crisis are getting stronger and stronger. Yahoo is no exception to this. They had a massive 64% drop in profits in the third quarter and now have decided to eject around 10% of the workforce, almost 1500 employees.
Between 1 July and 30 September 2008, Yahoo’s net profit amounted to just $54.3 million (£32.5 million) as compared to $151.3 million during the same period last year. What’s more, the company lowered its 2008 revenue estimate to a range of $7.18 billion to $7.38 billion, a drop from the forecast of $7.35 billion to $7.85 billion made at the end of the second quarter.

Industry analysts were quick to point out the company had been affecting job cuts for a second time this year. Around 1000 employees were laid off in January just weeks before it was offered $33 a share in Microsoft’s failed buyout attempt. The current stock price of Yahoo is close to its lowest in five and a half years. It could well be the case that CEO Jerry Yang would be wishing he had accepted the software giant’s offer.

Yang has however, maintained his confidence about Yahoo being able to survive these tough times. Yet the organisation is still far away in terms of reaching the level of profits made by its competitors, namely Google (31% in the last quarter) and Apple (26%).