AOL has just confirmed that it will lay off a large number of staffers from the company; the news coming only days after the AOL closed its deal with Huffington Post. In a phone interview with the media, a company spokesperson said that 200 people are about to be laid off by the company in the US. A large number of these employees are from the AOL editorial operations while others who will also be axed come from various other divisions of the company. AOL is also planning to lay off 700 employees in India in addition to these 200. However, around 300 of these employees are expected to move on to AOL support functions, such as operations and finance, in other companies where they get jobs.
AOL’s recent $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post is being seen as the chief prompt for the layoffs at the company. The deal was closed by AOL earlier this week officially integrating the publication firm with AOL Local and AOL Media to form the Huffington Post Media Group. Arianna Huffington, the founder of Huffington Post, is now heading up that division as the editor in chief and president.
AOL took over the staffers working in the publication in its acquisition of Huffington Post and this led to the company laying off some of its own employees in order to make room for them. However, even after this move, the editorial department of the company is expected to swell by 17 people because of the influx of the employees from Huffington Post, the spokesperson said. He also said that looking at the future, the company definitely plans to expand its editorial department. However, when it does so, the company will look towards hiring more in house staffers and move away from freelance employees.
