AOL to Cut Jobs, Call Centers

America Online is laying off more than 700 employees, mainly in call centers, as its base of dial-up subscribers continues to slump.

AOL is closing its Orlando, Fla., call center and laying off the 450 employees there, spokesman Nicholas Graham said Wednesday. It also is cutting positions in centers in Jacksonville, Fla., Tucson, Ariz., and at its headquarters in Dulles, Va.

Graham attributed the cuts to a decline in members and an increased base of computer-savvy users who do a lot of their own troubleshooting.

The cuts amount to about 4% of the Time Warner Inc. unit’s 20,000 employees worldwide -- the largest layoff since December 2004, Graham said.

A number of companies have expressed interest in AOL’s growing, advertising-supported online content business, including Microsoft Corp., Google Inc., Comcast Corp. and Yahoo Inc.

But the companies are not interested in AOL’s Internet service business, which is large and highly profitable but also in decline as consumers shift to faster broadband access services.

As of June 30, AOL had 20.8 million U.S. members, down 917,000 from the March quarter and 2.6 million from a year earlier. In Europe, AOL had 6.2 million members, down 99,000 from the previous quarter and 80,000 from a year earlier.