MySpace to cut jobs globally
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 25 June 2009, 01:40 IST   |    3 Comments
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MySpace to cut jobs globally
Bangalore: Around 300 international positions are going to be cut and at least four of its offices outside the U.S are going to be shut by social-networking site MySpace. This has come as a move to cut costs and narrow down its territory coverage. "As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace's staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions," said Owen Van Natta, Chief Executive, in a statement. The decision has come a week after the company announced that it would cut nearly 30 percent of its U.S. work force in order to become more competent. The California based company has been trying to cut down its employee costs, by bringing its staff level more in line with its rival, Facebook. ComScore, a tracking firm brought out a data recently which shows that, for the first time Facebook has reached the same level as MySpace in monthly U.S. visitors. The user base of MySpace stands at about 125 million worldwide, while that of Facebook has doubled to more than 200 million in less than a year. MySpace, which was in its initial years strongest in the U.S., Britain and Australia, has recently been on an expansion mode, internationally. It has been opening offices and identifying partners to develop market-specific features suiting local cultural habits. MySpace plans to discuss with international workers in a few countries before reducing its global work force to about 150 employees from the current 450 employees. The company said that the cuts will apply to all its international units. Offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain will all be looked at for potential reductions. China and a joint venture in Japan will not be affected by this restructuring. In the U.S., it plans to cut approximately 420 employees, bringing the total number of staff to 1,000, or about 1,150 worldwide after the international cuts.

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