EBay to cut 2,400 jobs as it prepares PayPal spinoff

By Trevor Mogg January 22, 2015

ebay to cut 2400 jobs as it prepares paypal spinoff — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Job cuts are on the way at eBay as the company makes preparations to spinoff PayPal, along with other changes designed to reduce outgoings.

The expected 2,400 losses represent about 7 percent of the company’s global workforce, with some at PayPal also likely to lose their jobs. The cuts are scheduled to take place by the end of the March, the company said on Wednesday.

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The e-commerce giant said it’s also considering an IPO, or even a straight sale, of its eBay Enterprise unit, which serves brick-and-mortar retail businesses such as Toys “R” Us with a variety of software tools to help them bolster their online presence.

News of the job losses came as the company posted mediocre financial data for the holiday quarter. Despite sales climbing by 9 percent to $4.92 billion, the income represented the slowest Q4 gain in four years. Cautious forecasts for revenue growth moving into 2015 also made it something of a difficult day for the online retail company.

Spinoff

EBay is intent on completing the spinoff of PayPal some time between July and December this year.

“Our plans are on track to separate eBay and PayPal into independent companies in the second half of 2015, and we are confident this is the right strategic path for each business,” eBay CEO John Donahoe said in a release put out Wednesday.

2014 difficulties

Last year was a challenging one for eBay. Three months after having its website defaced by the Syrian Electronic Army, it was revealed that it’d also been hit by a cyberattack exposing the personal information of millions of its users.

At around the same time, Google took action against eBay that reduced the chances of its pages coming up in search results, apparently in response to some suspect SEO practices being carried out by eBay.

“We have some challenges,” Donahoe admitted in a call with investors on Wednesday. “But overall, our focus and operating discipline delivered solid company performance in a year that quite frankly we’re glad to see come to an end.”

[Via eBay, AP]

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

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