Yahoo suspends employee pay raises

Update at 8:13 a.m. PST: Yahoo comment added.

Freezing salary increases is one of the standard tools available to cut costs during hard times, and Yahoo has taken it.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, whose years-long effort to improve its financial fortunes now must factor in a serious recession, told CNBC it's freezing raises, with employees notified on Wednesday.

Yahoo confirmed the change with CNET News on Friday and said it's part of the company's response to the recession. Yahoo also laid off 1,520 employees, beginning in December.

"There will be no regular salary increases this year," Yahoo spokeswoman Kim Rubey said. "We believe our employees understand the value of the cost-reduction initiatives we have been implementing, and the need to keep Yahoo fiscally sound through the current economic downturn."

New Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz fared better than the rank and file, with a $19 million pay package, not including bonuses.

Meanwhile, Google is under much less pressure but also grappling with the economy. On Thursday, Google announced a stock-option exchange program that will cost the company about $460 million but allow it to replace stock options made worthless by the company's stock drop with new ones based on current stock prices.

[thehog2]

That's nothing. My company suspended pay raises for entire organizations for almost 5 years. Just started back up the year before last, but they suspended raises again this past September. Not even col increases.

[sam99999999]

Infuriating -- the woman CEO gets $19 Million plus bonuses, and employees making $60,000 can't get a 2% raise.

This isn't just a "Yahoo" matter. For years the crooks on Wall Street paid themselves HUGE amounts, and now we taxpayers get stuck with the bill for bailing them out. This is a crime and Congress is asleep and complicit!

If Bartz had any sense of justice, she would forego her huge salary until she turns the company around. The BoD are a bunch of dumb patsies.

[tekwiz4u]

What a load of bull. The NEW CEO gets a 'extreme' pay package, and she goes around and order freezes and hands out pink slips. Maybe she wants to make sure HER money doesn't go to anyone else.

[commsoft]

Indeed. This is why the U.S. is turning toward socialism on its way toward oblivion. Too many everyday people, not just at the bottom of the income ladder, but in the middle and upper middle, are tired of seeing their own incomes stagnate (or fall in real terms) while those at the very, very top of the ladder skyrocket, and for what?

We're not talking $200k, which is now very much middle class in CA with a cheap condo in the Bay Area going for $500-600k+, but people making $10M+. There are plenty of people out there who could lead Yahoo! competently at $1M annual salary, people with Ivy League pedigrees and outstanding business experience, and the decision process behind alienating the rank and file employees, who will now be resentful and looking for other jobs as soon as the economy turns around, while paying $20M for this woman is not well reasoned.

So how does she get there? Now we have social circles of CEOs nominating each other for boards and leadership positions, and cooperative "institutional investors" who participate in the same circles and support what the boards are doing whether it benefits common shareholders or not, because the guys running the funds are unwilling to rock the boat, being participants in the same game.

Add a congress all too willing to be bought and to dole out tax dollars to the businesses that support them, and you get the opposite of either democracy or equal opportunity (and lest you think I'm referring only to the Republicans, hardly - witness the outright ownership of Dodd and Schumer by the banks, and the trillions in taxpayer money they are now receiving over the objections of 80% of the populace).

Meritocracy in America, to the extent it ever existed, seems to be being replaced by institutionalized corruption and theft at all levels of the government and private sector. Remind you of the fall of any other empires?

[globalist_agenda]

Timeshare spam. Yahoo geniuses still haven't figured out that email subjects like "Timeshare" are spam? Pathetic pukes. Lay them all off.

[BIGELLOW]

Did I read this right? Yahoo is SAVING money by HURTING their employees and getting rid of some. Google is SPENDING money in order to HELP their employees and keep them from jumping ship.

Wow.

Isn't there only one "market"?