• eBay

eBay (Photo : Reuters)

Online shopping giant eBay has plans to conduct a massive downsizing of its workforce by next year.

According to The Wall Street Journal, anonymous sources leaked that the layoffs will mostly be in the auction site's key marketplace sector. The firm is expected to cut around 3,000 of its workers or about 10 percent of eBay's total workforce.

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EBay started as a small online auction site which users from around the globe can sell their items online when other users bid on the item. It has grown into a multi-billion dollar firm that now has business partners in selling their products. To date, eBay has local operations in 30 key nations across the globe.

The downsize is significantly larger compared to the 325 jobs lost during a major shake with its e-commerce payment subsidiary PayPal in 2012.

PayPal lets users pay online shops, such as eBay, and other PayPal users via a digital wallet. The firm also allows money withdrawal to both U.S. and overseas banks around the globe. PayPal also has credit card integration for a more convenient and seamless online shopping experience

According to Time.com, the California-based online auction site announced that it will be separating from PayPal as one trading entity in September 2014.

The split comes after almost 12 years of the eBay-PayPal partnership since 2002, when the former bought PayPal for 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to integrate the payment systems of both firms.

"We are focused on running the business and setting eBay and PayPal up for success as independent companies," said eBay spokesperson Amanda Miller.