Yahoo is reportedly on the verge of announcing a new round of job cuts that would affect around 5% of its current staff, or somewhere between 650 and 700 employees. A formal announcement is expected as early as today. This would mark the company's fourth mass layoff in the past three years, two of which have come under the watch of CEO Carol Bartz, and will mostly affect Yahoo's product division in the U.S - in charge of properties like Yahoo Mail, Sports, and News.

The announcement won't come as a shock to many who have been following the rumors since last month over at All Things Digital. Nevertheless, it's definitely unfortunate timing for Yahoo employees with Christmas just a couple of weeks away. Cost cutting at the company seems unavoidable as it seeks to improve revenue and growth – revenue had edged up by less than 2 percent to $4.8 billion through the first nine months of the year, according to Associated Press, while rival Google has seen 23 percent revenue growth in the same time frame to nearly $21 billion.

In the last few years the company has also missed the opportunity to buy Facebook and headed off a $44.6 billion takeover offer from Microsoft at $33 per share (compared to today's value of roughly $16.70). Since then Yahoo has inked a deal with Microsoft to use Bing as its search technology provider and focus on its core website properties and its display-advertising business, but it hasn't shown any significant signs of a turnaround.