While Facebook and Google battle for talent, Yahoo slashed four percent, or roughly 600 employees, of its staff today.

"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. We'll continue to hire on a global basis to support our key priorities," a Yahoo spokesperson said. "Yahoo! is grateful for the important contributions made by the employees affected by this reduction."

Severance packages and outplacement services will be offered to affected employees, the spokesperson added.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the cuts were made in Yahoo's 7,000-strong products group, which is run by chief products officer Blake Irving (formerly of Microsoft).

Today marks the third year in a row Yahoo has laid off employees in the hundreds. In December 2008, the Internet company cut roughly 1,600 employees under then CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. Then in the second quarter of 2009, shortly after Carol Bartz replaced Yang as CEO in January, Yahoo slashed another 700 workers, roughly 5 percent of its payroll at the time.

Last week, rumors abounded that AOL was considering a partial merger with Yahoo. However yesterday Crains reported sources saying a formal deal was never brought to Yahoo's table.

Yahoo's share price was up 0.06 points, 0.36 percent, after trading hours.