Struggling internet giant Yahoo! announced Wednesday morning that it will lay off about 2,000 workers as it goes through a major restructuring in its efforts to remain competitive. 

(Image by V. Sharma, via Creative Commons)

According to an article by AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, who first reported on the coming layoffs Tuesday afternoon, this round of cuts is just the "tip of the iceberg," as it moves to focus on what it calls its "core businesses." Yahoo! currently employs about 14,000 people.   

"Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first — and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal," said new Yahoo! chief Scott Thompson in a statement. "Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions."

The vagueness of the executive's statement is likely to send remaining employees "ducking for cover," Forbes journalist Susan Adams writes, adding, "[...] it appears Thompson doesn’t have much of a plan aside from cost-cutting." The company expects the move to save $375 million for the year. 

Yahoo!'s stock has fallen a little over .6 percent as of this writing. Many shareholders have long demanded major strategic changes to the company. 

Yahoo! will hold its quarterly earnings meeting April 17, where Thompson is expected to elaborate on the company's strategy moving forward. Yahoo! has been going through an identity crisis of sorts as Google has easily dominated the search engine market and content creation has become central to Yahoo!'s business.

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