AOL goes on axing spree; 750 heads roll in India

AOL Inc, the internet company that agreed to buy the Huffington Post last month, laid off about 20 per cent of its work force on Thursday, with the bulk of the job cuts taking place in India.

The company eliminated 950 jobs - 750 in India and the rest in the US - as it integrates the news website and restructures to try to return to revenue growth. The company had 5,860 employees at the end of last year, according to regulatory filings.

About 300 employees in India have been offered jobs with the company's third-party contractors in the region. The remaining staffers in India would focus on developing consumer-facing products such as websites and applications for Asia.

At meeting addressed by AOL India head Kumar Talluri and officials from the US at its Bangalore facility on Thursday, the staff was told that about 500 employees, including the entire management team, would be laid off.

Some divisions are being acquired by HP and MindTree. Sources in the company said that HP would take 200 employees and MindTree 170. AOL is said to have given work commitments to the two companies for a certain number of years. HP and MindTree declined to comment on the matter.

"The changes for me today are very personal," chief executive officer Tim Armstrong said at the Bloomberg Media Summit in New York. "AOL employees deserve a tremendous amount of credit because I don't think it's easy to go from managing decline to managing growth."