Yahoo! Auctions laid off employees at their North American Sites on Tuesday. Employees in the U.S. and Canada were affected.

Yahoo! would not release the number of layoffs, but according to a statement by a Yahoo! Auctions spokesperson, the cuts affected "a handful of positions." The move was made as part of a "realignment of resources" and eliminated duplicate positions in the U.S. auctions site. As part of the realignment, the auctions category management will now be handled by the shopping account management team.

According to the Yahoo! spokesperson, "The layoffs will not affect the level of service on the site."

Yahoo! Auctions has not been able to sustain momentum in listing numbers after offering several Free Listing days over the past few months. Listings have remained steady at approximately 340,000, well off the 1.5 million auctions in January of 2001, that were on the Site before Yahoo! instituted fees for sellers listing items.

Yahoo! reported first quarter earnings on April 10, showing losses of $53.6 million in the first quarter of 2002.