Yahoo Is Laying Off Most Of Its India Engineering Office

Yahoo is effectively shutting down its Indian engineering office in a series of layoffs that will involve up to 500 people losing their jobs.

News of the layoffs emerged yesterday after Indian news site Next Big What claimed that Yahoo would be laying off every one of its employees in the country. That proved to be untrue.

According to Quartz, around 500 employees will be affected by the cuts, meaning that the Bangalore software development centre will essentially be shut down. Yahoo India, the company's editorial, sales and support unit, will be unaffected.

Employees involved in the new Bangalore layoffs are being offered five months of severance pay. Around 5% are being relocated to Yahoo's US office in California. The layoffs won't all happen at once, either, instead they will come in phases until December.

In a statement to Quartz, Yahoo explained the reasoning behind the layoffs:

As we ensure that Yahoo is on a path of sustainable growth, we're looking at ways to achieve greater efficiency, collaboration and innovation across our business… To this effect, we're making some changes to the way we operate in Bangalore leading to consolidation of certain teams into fewer offices. Yahoo will continue to have a presence in India and Bangalore remains an important office.