Ebay may eliminate thousands of jobs in early 2015

The online auction site is considering the elimination of as many as 3,000 jobs early next year, as the company gets ready to spin off its PayPal division into a separate company.

The cuts will affect people in eBay’s core marketplace division, writes the Wall Street Journal today, citing sources familiar with the matter. This division includes the eBay auction site and the StubHub tickets site.

Some analysts are speculating today that eBay is trying to lower its operating costs to appear as a more attractive buyout target.

The company’s operating costs rose by 14 percent in the first nine months of 2014 to $6.4 billion.

On September 30 eBay announced plans to spin off PayPal and form two separate, publicly traded companies in 2015.

Ebay said the split would help both companies “capitalize on growth opportunities in the rapidly changing global commerce and payments landscape.”

Actually, PayPal is growing faster than eBay. Revenues from eBay’s marketplace division increased 6 percent to $2.16 billion in the third quarter, while PayPal’s revenues rose 20 percent to $1.95 billion in the quarter.

eBay originally acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002.