Simply Hired fires a big part of its staff (exclusive)

Updated at 5:03 p.m. PT with more info about which teams were let go.

VentureBeat has learned that job search startup Simply Hired has laid off approximately 20 percent of its staff, according a source close to the company.

After repeated queries, the company would neither confirm nor deny the percentage of staff that it had laid off. However, it did admit that it had “consolidated” and “expanded operations offshore,” which means the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based … Continue Reading

Adobe beats the street with surprisingly strong Q4

Adobe Systems has reported stronger-than-expected revenues for the fourth quarter, after several events in the past few months suggested a weakened position.

Adobe has had a tough fourth quarter, with its decision to kill Flash software on mobile platforms and the company laying off 750 full-time employees in early November. But despite those challenges, the company did well in its digital media and digital marketing businesses, according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.

The company posted … Continue Reading

THQ lays off 30 following lower-than-expected uDraw sales

THQ has laid off 30 people from its Play THQ development team, including executive of kids-family-casual games Martin Good.

Play THQ is the team behind the uDraw GameTablet (pictured above). The system was viewed as an innovative addition to the Wii game console that could bring out the artistic side of younger players. But sales during the season of huge blockbusters were weak.

VentureBeat first heard of the layoffs on Twitter and contacted THQ to … Continue Reading

Adobe lays off 750 workers to reach financial goals & emphasize digital focus

Adobe is handing pink slips to 750 of its full-time staff, the company announced in an earnings report today.

The layoffs are part of Adobe’s plan to restructure the company, placing a larger emphasis on digital media and digital marketing divisions.

The layoffs are occurring mostly in North America and in Europe.

Adobe’s last big layoff exactly two years ago saw 680 workers, around nine percent of its total workforce, leaving the company.

As a … Continue Reading

Game maker RockYou to cut staff by 40% just weeks after launching two new games

Game-maker RockYou is set to announce major layoffs tomorrow just weeks after launching two new games, Galactic Allies and Hooked, VentureBeat has learned. Redwood City, CA.-based, RockYou makes games for social platforms like Facebook, and is responsible for popular titles such as the Zoo World franchise.  As many as 55 employees will lose their jobs, according to a leaked copy of an internal document we have seen.

The news, to be announced on Nov. 3, … Continue Reading

BuyWithMe acquired by Gilt Groupe, in for another round of layoffs (report)

A boatload of BuyWithMe employees are about to take a permanent “Gilt trip” after the startup’s acquisition.

Gilt Groupe, the luxe-themed website for upmarket flash sales, is reportedly in the final stages of buying struggling daily deals service BuyWithMe.

The latter company all too recently let the world know it was axing more than half of its staff after it was unable to raise a new round of funding. Some feel the layoffs happened to … Continue Reading

HP sacks over 500 WebOS employees

The inevitable layoffs for workers in HP’s webOS division began this week, with the company planning to let as many as 525 workers go, reports All Things Digital.

After HP killed its webOS hardware business out of the blue in August, the company had made it clear that downsizing was inevitable. While the company says it’s still committed to webOS as a software platform, that doesn’t mean much for the workers in the webOS hardware … Continue Reading

RIM cuts 2,000 jobs, shuffles execs — but will it matter?

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion announced this morning that it is laying off 2,000 employees as part of an earlier announced “cost optimization” program.

Additionally, the company is rearranging the roles for some of its senior management. Co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who have been criticized for failing to keep the company competitive against fresh mobile upstarts like the iPhone and Android, are holding onto their positions.

“It’s common for companies, once they run … Continue Reading

Cisco to axe 6,500 employees in massive restructuring

Networking giant Cisco Systems plans to lay off 6,500 employees as part of a massive restructuring plan, the company announced Monday.

The layoffs, which are one of the largest single layoffs this year and appear to be the largest single cut Cisco has ever made, amount to about 9 percent of Cisco’s total work force and 15 percent of executives at the vice president level and above. About 2,100 of those employees elected to participate … Continue Reading

Myspace laying off 150 employees ahead of company’s sale?

The once great social networking site Myspace is expected to make big cuts to its employee ranks Wednesday, reports Gawker.

TechCrunch later confirmed with sources inside Myspace that the company is laying off at least 150 (37.5 percent) of its 400 remaining employees– with another 150 employees possibly being put on a transition plan while looking for new jobs.

In January, Myspace cut 47 percent of its staff as part of the social networking site’s … Continue Reading

Cisco's layoffs could be its biggest ever

Cisco Systems is expected to cut thousands of jobs in what could be the biggest layoffs ever for the world’s largest maker of networking equipment, Reuters said.

Faced with slowing growth, Cisco chief executive John Chambers has set a goal of cutting $1 billion in costs. Analysts contacted by Reuters predicted that Cisco will lay off 4,000 workers in the coming months, or about 4 percent of its worldwide workforce of 73,000. Cisco also employs … Continue Reading

Panasonic cuts 17,000 jobs, blames Japan quake for revenue loss

Japan-based Panasonic announced today that it will cut 17,000 jobs worldwide through March 2013 and reduce the number of its business divisions from five to three.

Panasonic reported a $499 million loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011, largely due to $61 billion in restructuring costs. The restructuring will be done during fiscal year 2012. Panasonic expects that synergies from the restructuring will contribute $735 million to its annual operating profit.

The company … Continue Reading

Do AOL’s layoffs spell doom for quality journalism?

AOL eliminated approximately 900 jobs today, including 200 US employees in the media and tech group and 700 people in India.

In a company memo that has leaked out to a number of news organizations, chief executive Tim Armstrong tries to paint the move as a positive and necessary step towards turning the company around, saying it will “significantly improve AOL’s ability to focus on growth.” And despite the layoffs, Armstrong said AOL will be … Continue Reading

Not so pretty: Layoffs at e-commerce darling ModCloth

ModCloth, the hot e-commerce startup backed by Accel Partners, First Round Capital, and the Floodgate Fund, laid off just over a dozen of its 248 employees today, the company told VentureBeat.

The company, which sells vintage clothing and apparel from independent designers, raised $19.8 million last year in a round led by Accel. Founded in Pittsburgh in 2002 by Susan and Eric Koger, the company is now headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in … Continue Reading

Why Nokia’s exec shakeup is exactly what it needs

Several Nokia executives may soon be sacked as part of CEO Stephen Elop’s grand strategy revamp for the company, Reuters reports.

The news, which was first reported by the German weekly Wirtschaftswoche this morning, may seem like yet another setback for the beleaguered phone company, which has struggled to keep pace with the iPhone and Android devices. But personally, I think it’s the best Nokia news we’ve heard in some time.

More than anything, Nokia … Continue Reading

Myspace: We’re cutting staff by 47 percent, but our redesign is great

Myspace today released a statement confirming yesterday’s reports that it plans to lay off a large percentage of its workforce — specifically, the company says its “organizational restructuring” will cut 500 employees, or 47 percent of the company.

Companies always try to paint these sorts of announcements in the best possible light, although that’s harder when News Corp-owned Myspace is essentially halving its workforce. The big message from chief executive Mike Jones is that the … Continue Reading

MySpace layoffs: 550 fewer friends at the office?

MySpace, the social networking site that once was social networking, could lay off a staggering half of its 1,100-employee workforce, according to AllThingsDigital.

Sources told the publication that parent company News Corp. has long been looking to enforce drastic cost-cutting measures after the site’s revenues and traffic have been on a decline. While no decision has been made yet, the company is rumored to have given its staff a holiday for the last week of … Continue Reading

After big layoffs, can Yahoo find its focus?

Yahoo confirmed today that it has laid off around 600 employees, totaling 4 percent of its global workforce.

The New York Times first reported that layoffs were coming yesterday, and even before the company had made an official announcement, TechCrunch published unhappy accounts from anonymous employees.

Now Yahoo is sending out the following statement:

Today’s personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo! for revenue growth and margin expansion and to … Continue Reading

New Nokia CEO drops a bomb: 1,800 workers are out of here

Just five weeks after taking over phone manufacturer Nokia, CEO Stephen Elop is planning to slash 1,800 jobs since initiating plans to refocus the company on smartphones, according to Nokia’s quarterly earnings report released today.

Nokia turned around its performance from last year, jumping to a quarterly profit of about $739 million compared to losing $781 million in the same quarter in 2009. Its sales were up 4.7 percent to $14.4 billion compared to $13.7 … Continue Reading

Can real-time search make a buck? OneRiot restructures

The biggest of the independent real-time search engines, OneRiot, restructured its management today and laid off an unknown number of employees, including company co-founder Robert Reich.

Kimbal Musk, a serial entrepreneur who served as chief executive, is stepping aside to serve as chairman and making way for longtime president Tobias Peggs to take the lead.

The Boulder, Colo. company, which raised $27 million in venture capital, has pioneered real-time search, a way of looking for … Continue Reading