Jerry Yang’s got some pink slips to hand out in the next couple of weeks.

So goes the rumor floating around the blogosphere at the moment. According to Silicon Alley Insider’s Henry Blodget, Yahoo! is looking to soon slim its 12,000-strong workforce by 13-20%.

Should this tip be given any credence?

Perhaps. The Wall Street Journal recently published a piece (subscription needed) documenting strong evidence that Yahoo!’s chief executive will begin to take strong measures to turn around the company’s fortunes, which may well include a significant cutback in employee numbers. Yahoo! has borne the brunt of much criticism in the way it has addressed lagging performance in the face of increasing competitive pressures delivered by the faster-moving Google complex. A little weight loss could be essential to the recovery process.

Going back to a column I put together on Jan 11, I claimed that a Yahoo! buyout was unlikely. I still stand by that belief. Yet I will secede from my previous statement on Yahoo!’s current health. Whereas a week ago I recognized the company as not weak, I’ll attest now that it’s really not looking so good. Yang sure has a big mess on his hands.

All is not lost, though. Edits (like the supposed layoffs to come shortly) and amendments can be enacted to right the ship once again. But things could very easily go from bad to much, much worse fairly quickly in the months to come. If public perception is that Big Y! is faltering company-wide, the performance of its ticker symbol will head ever more gradually on a decline, and one can’t rule out a snowball effect of bad tidings for the Web giant in ’08 as a result.

So CEO Jerry is going to have to do a sterling job of balancing caution with intelligent risk to alter the fate of the company (which he co-founded with David Filo). He’s got a strong interest in making the corporate gearing – the managers, salesmen, and the software engineers alike – work well again. Yahoo! is what he is best known for, and there is no reason to think that he wants to see his legacy overshadowed by a big ol’ sore spot. Pride and joy are likely what he aims for.

We’ll have to wait and see if he and his teammates in Sunnyvale succeed in achieving that mission.