AOL has moved to shut down many of its European offices after failing to reach a target of cutting a third of its worldwide workforce through voluntary redundancy.

The UK operation would see a “significant reduction” in staff numbers, the company said. It announced plans in November to cut 2,500 jobs across the world, with the aim of saving $300m a year, and about 1,100 employees have taken voluntary redundancy. More than 1,000 further job cuts are expected across the US and Europe.

“We will be significantly reducing our UK staff, but will continue to have a robust advertising operation as well as a consumer offering,” an AOL spokesman said in a statement. “Ireland will remain a core technology development centre for the company. Both the UK and Ireland were part of the voluntary separation programme we ran late last year. Regarding Bebo, it continues to be part of AOL Ventures.”

AOL UK would not give a total employee count or the number it expects to cut.

The company said that meetings were held across its European operation yesterday about cutbacks and the closure of “many” offices, starting with those in Spain and Sweden. Four German offices will close, in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich. In France the company has considered a number of options and intends to consult on closing its Paris office.

The AOL spokesman stressed that successful operations, such as the advertising business AdTech, would continue to have offices in Europe.

In the USA the company said that it would “begin notifying a limited number of individuals impacted by the involuntary lay-off … with the majority of notifications taking place in the USA on 13 January.

“For many of the employees impacted in the USA Wednesday will be their last day in the office,” the company said.

AOL also said that it was closing its Seattle office, home of some of its mobile operations, with the mobile division to be centralised in California.

AOl has said that the restructuring programme will see it take a $200m charge this year.

“We have looked at every aspect of this business,” said a spokesman for AOL. “We evaluated our competitive position and product portfolio in every market, and we asked the hard questions about areas that were no longer core to the strategy and our profit profiles in the businesses and countries where we operate.”

The company had approximately 6,900 employees before the restructuring, of whom about 4,500 were in the US. AOL was spun off from its former parent group, Time Warner, in December.

Example article courtesy of the Guardian

At noon tomorrow, Barack Obama passes the one-year mark of his presidency — giving a variety of groups yet another opportunity to grade his performance in office.

The results tend to be mixed, and agenda-driven.

Human Rights Watch gave Obama mixed reviews on reversing Bush administration counter-terrorism policies. “Key Bush-era abuses repudiated, but major problems remain,” the organization said in its report.

The American Civil Liberties Union also used the term mixed. “Of a set of 145 detailed recommendations the ACLU made to the new president upon his election, the administration has acted on just over one-third of them,” the organization said.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence , meanwhile, gave Obama an F for “concessions to the ‘guns anywhere’ mentality of the gun lobby and lack of leadership for common-sense guns laws.”

The president pulled a C-minus from The Institute For Policy Studies, which gave him a score of 6.5 out of 10 on its “Change Index.” The organization said, “like the public at large, we’re looking at the glass of water that is the Obama administration and trying to decide whether it’s half full or half empty.”

The Center For Arms Control and Non-Proliferation pretty much ran the gamut. It gave the president an A for transforming nuclear weapons policy — he wants to eventually eliminate them — but “an incomplete for execution.”

Of course, incomplete could apply to any Obama initiative. After all, he still has at least three years to go.

And don’t forget that the president gave himself a grade in his Oprah Winfrey interview last year: A “good, solid B-plus.”

On to the next reporting period.

Singer Miley Cyrus will bid farewell to the role that made her famous, after a Disney spokeswoman confirmed that the series is scheduled to end next year.

The series, about a high school student who leads a secret life as a pop star, thrust teenager Cyrus – now 17 – into the spotlight when it began in 2006.

A big screen version of the show topped the US box office last year.

A Disney Channel executive said the series was expected “to wrap after shooting this new batch of episodes”.

The current season – which is reported to start shooting this month – is set to conclude in March 2011 with “a big one-hour event”.

“You never know in this business… but right now we’re scheduled to wrap after shooting,” Disney Channel’s Senior Vice President of Programming Adam Bonnett told the New York Post.

Cyrus, the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, launched a successful pop and film career off the back of the show.

She was recently named favourite breakout movie actress at the People’s Choice Awards, and stars in drama The Last Song later this year, as well as playing herself in the forthcoming Sex And The City sequel.

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