AOL axes another 2,000 jobs

That's 20 per cent of the company

America Online is slashing another 2,000 jobs worldwide - about 20 per cent of its workforce - as it continues to morph from online service provider to a company hoping to make its money from web sites you can advertise on.

The cuts were announced via an internal memo from CEO Randy Falco, The Associated Press reports.

"This realignment will allow us to increase investment in high-growth areas of the company – as an example, we added hundreds of people this year through acquisitions – while scaling back in areas with less growth potential or those that aren’t core to our business," the memo said.

The company cut 5,000 jobs little more than a year ago, when it first announced plans to move away from life as a subscription-based ISP. The latest round of cuts will begin tomorrow and continue over "the next couple months."

About 1,200 of the cuts will come in the US, including 750 in northern Virginia. Last year, AOL announced plans to move its headquarters from Virginia to New York City, center of the US advertising world. ®