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Yahoo employees who want to keep their positions have been given some good news and some bad news.  The bad: an outside firm is going to conduct some sort of efficiency audit.  The silver lining: Bain & Company hasn't traditionally swung as many axes as one might expect.

Jerry Yang is the source of the first half of this info.  In an email reprinted by Valleywag, he told Yahoos, "we're continuing the work already underway to get fit as an organization: actively looking for ways to make process and structural changes to our business that will allow us to work more efficiently, with more scale.  we've enlisted the help of Bain & Co. to work with the leadership team on identifying ways to leverage our strengths, and to improve and accelerate our performance."

Later on, there's also a mention of "benefiting greatly from more discipline," which is a gulp-inducing phrase.

Bain's Wikipedia entry paints it as a rather friendly entity, though.  In reference to the first dotcom crash, the article states, "Bain's previous experiences with contraction left the firm zealous in avoiding layoffs."  And it turns out that Consulting Magazine has been naming Bain the "Best Firm to Work For" since 2003.

Any Yahoo employees who get laid off will at least know of a good place to send their resumes, then.