EBay announces job cuts and acquisitions

Headcount reduction and new purchases designed to improve operations

David Neal, vnunet.com 06 Oct 2008

Auction giant eBay has announced widespread job cuts, along with three acquisitions designed to boost its position in the marketplace.

EBay said today that it is laying off some 10 per cent of its workforce, which is likely to amount to roughly 1,000 full-time employees and hundreds of temporary workers. The company will also close what it described as a number of "open" positions.

John Donahoe, eBay president and chief executive, said: "While never an easy decision to make, these reductions will help improve our operations and strengthen our ability to continue investing in growth."

The firm hopes that the cuts will improve its cost structure and strengthen its overall competitiveness.

EBay also announced the acquisition of US online payments firm Bill Me Later for around $945m (£545m), along with dba.dk, an online classifieds site, and a Danish classified car sales site called bilbasen.dk for a total of around $390m (£225m).

The firm said in a statement that it expects to boost traffic to its most recent purchases, and to improve its leadership positions in both e-commerce and online payments.

"Our classifieds acquisition gives us another market leadership position in Europe for this rapidly growing part of our portfolio," said Donahoe.

"We are the global leader in classifieds with top positions in Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan and the UK, and sites in more than 1,000 cities in 20 countries.

"The acquisition of dba.dk and bilbasen.dk gives us technology and expertise we can leverage across our classifieds portfolio to create better customer experiences."

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