Several weeks after rumors began to spread that the beleaguered Yahoo was on the cusp of announcing a round of layoffs before the end of the year, the company has confirmed "personnel changes" of several hundred employees across its offices worldwide.

"Today's personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace," a statement from the company confirming the layoffs explained. "We'll continue to hire on a global basis to support our key priorities. Yahoo is grateful for the important contributions made by the employees affected by this reduction. We are offering severance packages and outplacement services to these employees."

AllThingsD reported on Monday night that the layoffs would be Tuesday and could affect up to 700 employees. The final carnage looks to be slightly less than that, about four percent of employees, or about 560 people in total.

About three months after current CEO Carol Bartz took over from predecessor Jerry Yang, the company cut about 5 percent of its workforce. A month prior to Bartz's arrival, the company had cut about 10 percent, and another 1,000 early in 2008.