Yahoo reportedly laying off its editorial, social media teams in SG, recruiting ‘curation editors’

SINGAPORE: Yahoo, the web service provider and digital news publication, is reportedly undergoing restructuring in Singapore, resulting in layoffs within its editorial and social media teams.

According to a report by The Edge Singapore on Monday (29 Apri), a total of 17 staff members are set to depart from Yahoo after 7 May, including individuals with over 15 years of tenure with the company.

Affected employees will receive compensation equivalent to slightly more than two weeks’ pay for each year of service, as per an anonymous source familiar with the matter.

The Edge reported that meetings held on 23 April between affected Yahoo staff and a representative from human resources, along with Simon Wheeler, Yahoo’s Senior Director of Content for Australia and Southeast Asia, confirmed the changes.

However, Yahoo’s sales team in Singapore remains unaffected by the restructuring. Although they have ceased selling advertorial content, there’s no focus on selling branded content, as stated by The Edge.

Staff members were informed of Yahoo’s shift in editorial strategy, indicating that original content creation from Singapore will cease.

Hiring “Curation editors” in Singapore

Instead, the company appears to be transitioning towards a curated content approach.

This transition is reflected in Yahoo’s recent job listings on LinkedIn, specifically for “curation editors” based in Singapore.

The listing, posted five days ago, seeks individuals who are “dynamic and news-obsessed” to oversee content curation across various distribution channels, including social media and SEO optimization.

As of Tuesday (30 April), over 100 applicants have already applied for the full-time remote job post.

The Edge highlighted that affected staff were informed they could apply for new roles listed on Yahoo’s LinkedIn job ads.

Additionally, the company is actively recruiting a Market Lead for Yahoo News Singapore.

The job description seeks a “dynamic, creative, and well-organized individual” to spearhead Yahoo News operations in Singapore and assemble a team capable of delivering top-tier curation.

The primary focus of this role lies in curating content, meticulously selecting the most compelling stories from a diverse range of content providers and presenting them across all relevant platforms to our audience.

The candidate is required to cultivate engagement and foster trust in Yahoo’s curated content, while also overseeing programming for the Yahoo Homepage and social media accounts.

This entails the hands-on creation of content packages, headlines, and, when appropriate, curated content formats.

Yahoo’s layoffs in October 2022: Seven journalists, including senior editor Nicholas Yong were affected in Singapore

Yahoo, once a pioneering search engine and default web portal for many, underwent several ownership changes over the years.

It was previously sold to US telco Verizon, which took it private in 2017. In 2021, it was sold for US$5 billion to private equity firm Apollo Global.

In February 2023, Yahoo’s global headquarters in the US announced plans to eliminate about 1,600 jobs, constituting 20% of its total workforce at the time.

The layoffs are part of a broader effort by the company to streamline operations in Yahoo’s advertising unit. The Yahoo for Business segment’s strategy had “struggled to live up to our high standards across the entire stack”

Yahoo’s CEO, Jim Lanzone, clarified that the job cuts were primarily a result of the division’s restructuring rather than challenges in the ad market. Lanzone emphasized that discontinuing the unprofitable SSP business would significantly enhance Yahoo’s overall profitability.

As part of its restructuring, the company aimed to reduce the workforce of its ad-tech division, previously known as Yahoo For Business, by half by the end of 2023.

This restructuring led to the establishment of a new division called Yahoo Advertising, which refocused ad sales teams on the company’s core properties, including Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Sports.

In October 2022, Yahoo made the decision to lay off seven journalists based in Singapore, including former senior editor Nicholas Yong, who had been with Yahoo since 2014.

This marked Yahoo’s most recent reported retrenchment in Singapore, with the previous instance occurring in 2016.

During that time, one of those affected was the late Marc Lourdes, who served as Yahoo Singapore’s former editor-in-chief.