US Internet social networking giant MySpace said on Tuesday it would cut 420 jobs, nearly 30 percent of its domestic staff, in a restructuring aimed at boosting efficiency.
MySpace, a unit of media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, said it was cutting payrolls “as part of a plan to restructure itself into a more innovative, efficient, and entrepreneurial business.”
The restructuring plan affects all US divisions of the company and the round of job cuts would lower the domestic workforce to 1,000 employees, it said in a statement.
“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” MySpace chief executive Owen Van Natta said.
“I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace,” he said.
“Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product,” Van Natta said.
Van Natta, who was named MySpace CEO in April, was a chief revenue officer and vice president of operations for Facebook.
He resigned from the rival company early last year.
Facebook replaced MySpace last year as the world’s most popular social network and industry figures show it has been widening its lead.
Facebook was the top social networking site when ranked by total minutes for the month of April, showing a gain of 700 percent from a year earlier, a recent study by Nielsen Online showed.
MySpace was in second place, with its total minutes declining from 7.3 billion in April last year to 5 billion in April, the survey showed.
MySpace claims 130 million users compared with Facebook’s audience of 200 million.
Despite the newly announced employee reductions, MySpace’s workforce would remain larger than Facebook’s staff of about 900.
Social networking Web sites are evolving with a trend toward people being able to take online identities with them as they shift between services.
MySpace, which launched in 2003, was bought by Murdoch’s News Corp in 2005 for US$580 million.
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