eBay to cut global jobs by 1,000

eBay, world's largest online marketplace, will be slashing its global workforce by about 10 per cent, including jobs in India, to improve the cost structure of the company.

eBay plans to reduce the global workforce by nearly 10 per cent, affecting about 1,000 employees in addition to several hundred temporary workers and the reduction of open positions, eBay said in a statement on Monday.

The online marketplace has about 16,000 permanent staff worldwide and the step would reduce the number of permanent employees by 1,000.

"The global reduction is intended to simplify and streamline eBay's organisation, improve the company's cost structure and strengthen the overall competitiveness of the company's existing businesses," the company said.

According to an official of eBay India, the Indian arm of the American company, the firm would be bringing down its employee strength to 80 as part of its organisational plans toward improving its "long term financial architecture".

At present, eBay India has 110 employees.

"We have taken the decision to outsource our customer service and payment operations to another BPO firm VCustomer. As part of the process, 30 employees of eBay India will be transitioning to VCustomer," eBay India's Senior Manager (Corporate Communications) Deepa Thomas told PTI.

The transition of 30 employees to VCustomer is expected to be completed in three months, Thomas added.

According to the statement, the workforce reduction is expected to result in pretax restructuring charges of about $70-80 million, with the charges predominantly recorded in the fourth quarter of 2008.