AOL drops 900 jobs after Huffington Post purchase

by Steven Mostyn - Mar 14 2011, 11:16

Online heavyweight AOL has this week announced sweeping job cuts that will see the company tossing some 900 employees to the wolves—the equivalent of around 20 percent of the provider’s current global workforce.

News of AOL’s restructuring comes a month after it splashed $315 million USD on the acquisition of leading online magazine Huffington Post (HuffPost), which it said was expected to boost monthly traffic by around 117 million visitors.

However, despite the apparent expansion afforded AOL’s portfolio by the HuffPost capture, the blood-encrusted scythe of unemployment has been swung due to apparent overlap created by the high-profile purchase.

In terms of impact, AOL has said 200 jobs will be lost from its U.S. content and technology departments, while the other 700 will affect support workers in India.

Taking the edge of slightly—but only slightly—AOL was keen to point out that 300 of those India-based employees will be relocated into other support positions.

Although those facing the chop are unlikely to be thrilled, this latest round of restructuring is fairly low-key by AOL’s standards.

Back in late 2009, when content partners AOL and Time Warner split, a massive 2,300 workers found themselves dropped during the aftermath.

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