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AOL India to Cut 500 Jobs and Transition 300 to Contractors

March 21, 2011

AOL, Inc., is cutting several hundred jobs in India, according to a number of media sources today. The layoffs come about a month after AOL said it would buy the Huffington Post news and commentary website for $315 million.


It is unclear how many jobs AOL is cutting, said Reuters. Technology and media news websites PaidContent.org and News Corp's All Things Digital said AOL is cutting 400 jobs.

“The number is close to the truth,” said an AOL source who declined to be identified for fear of being fired in retaliation.

India's Medianama has identified the number of jobs that will be lost as closer to 500, in addition to the 300 that will be transferred to contractor status and will instead work for either MindTree Ltd., or Hewlett-Packard Co. A written statement from AOL confirmed that MindTree and HP will take over some of its functions in India.

Employees are being given two to three months severance pay, and additional tenure pay in accordance with how long they've worked for the company. For example, those with three years of employment with AOL India are getting an additional three weeks pay. The 300 employees will be transitioned to contractor status by June 30th 2011, said MediaNama.

AOL India has said that, going forward, its focus will be on building consumer facing products primarily for the Indian and other Asian markets.


Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for ContactCenterSolutions. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Tammy Wolf



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