This article is more than 1 year old

AOL sets itself mountain to climb with 1,400 layoffs

Wrinkly web outfit axes offices in Sweden and Spain

AOL began a series of job cuts yesterday, after it failed to convince 2,500 of its employees to take voluntary redundancy at the firm, which was spun out of Time Warner late last year.

The limping web outfit announced plans to axe jobs in November 2009. Since then, only 1,100 of its workers have taken voluntary redundancy, leaving AOL with little choice but to lay-off another 1,400 staff.

The company said in a statement that it planned to close some offices in Europe, starting with its operations in Spain and Sweden. AOL has also had discussion with its employees in the UK, Germany and France.

It will begin talks with various Workers’ Councils throughout Europe next week.

Meanwhile, a smaller number of AOL employees in the US will be laid off, with the firm planning to pass a pink slip to those individuals by end of play tomorrow. AOL did not confirm how many Stateside employees were up for the chop.

“We will be offering packages to impacted employees in the US that will include severance, benefits and outplacement assistance, among other things,” said AOL, which has ominously dubbed phase one of its “turnaround” as Project Everest. ®

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