The latest round of layoffs was not completely unexpected. Verizon purchased AOL for $4.4 billion earlier this year, and many AOL units also overlap with existing Verizon divisions. Reuters confirmed the cuts with an AOL spokesperson, who said “we are aligning the organization for the same level of growth in 2016.”
As many as two-thirds of the cuts are in AOL’s membership division, which handles legacy business: Mainly its famous dial-up service, but also AOL Mail and AIM. According to the report, some staffers in marketing and social media roles have also been affected, but the majority of the layoffs focus on the “operations layer,” according to the report. The layoffs are just under 2% of AOL’s 6,000 workers.