Rumor has it that Yahoo! is planning a new round of layoffs.  TechCrunch reported yesterday that the Internet giant anticipates letting go of an as yet unspecified number of workers from its Search group, the team responsible for its web search engine.  In a deal made last year between Yahoo and Microsoft, Yahoo now outsources its search engine to Bing and the plans to downsize its staff in that area may be a further residual of the deal.

Due to weak financial returns in past years and a tumbling stock price, Yahoo laid off some 700 workers last April, following cuts in early 2008 and 2009 totaling almost 2,500.  The cuts represented nearly 5 percent of Yahoo’s labor force.  The company recently surpassed analysts’ expectations, however, showing a surprising increase in profits in the last fiscal quarter.