AOL’s European staff will have to wait before they hear how the company’s latest plan to lay off 10 percent of worldwide staff will hit them. CEO Randy Falco told staff yesterday AOL’s latest big change would also mean a reorganisation for AOL (NYSE: TWX) internationally, with about 700 jobs going worldwide, because “online marketers have tightened their ad buying across the board”.
But, though Falco expects to decide on US job losses by end of March, here in Europe the picture will only become clear later, as AOL has to negotiate job losses with those pesky unions. For the record, though it operates sites across European nations, AOL’s main European hubs are in London, Paris and Hamburg.
After having offloaded its ISP businesses, AOL has been undergoing a transition in to three distinct units – Platform-A for advertising, MediaGlow for content and People Networks for social stuff. Former MD of all AOL UK Michael Steckler last year moved to be Platform-A UK MD and wasn’t replaced, with UK content staff instead reporting to AOL Europe CEO Dana Dunne. A similar process has happened around Europe but other countries have retained a stronger country management at the content level.
My colleague Staci Kramer reported last night: “It would be fair to speculate this re-org will put more power over international in the hands of the execs in the U.S. leading AOL