Report: Yahoo plans cost-cutting moves, layoffs

Yahoo is expected to announce cost-cutting moves this week, including another round of layoffs, according to a report Sunday in The Wall Street Journal.

The exact number of layoffs is unknown, but job cuts are expected to come from all departments in the 14,300-employee company, according to the report. Yahoo, which is set to announce its third-quarter earnings Tuesday, has reportedly asked managers to identify areas where the company can achieve operating budget reductions of 15 percent. In January, Yahoo laid off an estimated 1,100 employees in a bid to cut costs and trim operations that weren't performing as well as others.

Rumors of layoffs at Yahoo have been circulating for weeks, with Alley Insider's Henry Blodget calling for the elimination of 3,000 jobs at the company.

At the same time, Yahoo's stock has been under tremendous pressure, closing at $12.90 on Friday. Just a week before that, its stock traded as low as $11.37, the lowest price since March 2003. Yahoo, as a result, now has a market cap of $17.88 billion.

Although Yahoo's shares continue to give up ground, the company's stock performance during recent trading sessions has largely mirrored the broader markets. Likewise, many tech companies are resorting to layoffs to stem their financial losses.

What's different for Yahoo is that five months ago Microsoft walked away from its buyout offer of $47.5 billion to snap up the entire company.

CNET News reporter Dawn Kawamoto noted that painful reality last week:

No doubt, most tech companies are getting pummeled on Wall Street, but Yahoo's drop has to be particularly galling, given how much more Microsoft was willing to pay for the company.

Yahoo's stock price got a goose on Thursday after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer noted Yahoo's declining stock price in saying that a takeover of the Internet search pioneer still made sense, putting even more pressure on Yahoo executives.