WASHINGTON--Yahoo! is preparing a new round of layoffs and several hundred employees could be affected, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported late Tuesday.

The newspapers said the layoffs, which would be the first since Carol Bartz took over in January as chief executive of the Internet company, could be announced as early as next week, when Yahoo! reports its quarterly earnings.

The Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo! cut some 2,400 jobs in 2008 and had 13,600 employees at the end of last year.

Yahoo!, like other companies, has been suffering from the slowdown in online advertising and has been losing share in the lucrative online search market to Google.

All Things Digital, a leading Silicon Valley technology website, reported last week that Yahoo! has held "early discussions" with computer software giant Microsoft about possible Internet search and advertising partnerships.

Microsoft tried last year to buy Yahoo! for 47.5 billion dollars in a vain effort to merge online resources to better battle Google, which rules more than 60 percent of the US online search market.