Massive Layoffs Are Reportedly Brewing at eBay Ahead of PayPal Spinoff

At eBay, plans are in the works to shed as much as 10 percent of its workforce, or approximately 3,000 employees, early next year as the company prepares to split from PayPal, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing people "familiar with the company's thinking." Most of the layoffs will affect employees working in eBay's marketing division, these individuals added.

Plans to pare down the staff are likely a result of eBay's announcement in September that it would spin off its PayPal unit into a separate, publicly traded company in the second half of 2015. PayPal was founded in the late 1990s and went public in 2002, before it was snapped up by eBay that same year for $1.5 billion.

While the eBay-PayPal pairing initially made sense, long before the official announcement investors – most notably Carl Icahn – had aggressively pushed for eBay to spin-off PayPal, arguing that freeing the unit would allow it to focus on its payments and attract new talent.

Related: How PayPal's Spinoff Could Spell a Tide Shift for the Mobile Payments Industry