Time Inc. employees have been on pins and needles for months about expected layoffs, and the official word is expected to come down Wednesday.
The company hasn't said anything publicly yet, but within the rank and file, the consensus seems to be that job cuts could number in the 600 to 700 range (the company's global headcount is 8,000). CEO Laura Lang, who came from digital ad agency Digitas, is expected to put them in the context of the print-centric company’s need to move more aggressively in a digital direction.
The reduction at the Time Warner publishing unit will follow cuts at other media companies and come a week before the parent's fourth-quarter earnings release, set for Feb. 6. The New York Times just undertook a buyout to eliminate 30 people from the newsroom; Thomson Reuters laid off 3,000 of 50,000 people across the company; and Meredith Corp. cut 60, or about 2 percent of its workforce, to name a few.
The Newspaper Guild has labor agreements that cover people at People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money. Guild-covered employees are usually notified of pending layoffs and given the opportunity to take buyouts. As of late Tuesday, the guild hadn’t been notified of any plans for layoffs, according to a rep there.
Time Inc. made deep staff cuts back in 2008 and 2009. But in the third quarter of 2012, publishing revenues declined 6 percent, in part reflecting a 6 percent decrease in subscription revenues and 5 percent decrease in advertising revenues. This round of cuts is expected to be felt across the board, although it would seem that Sports Illustrated would be less impacted because it took steps to reduce staff over the summer.
“Magazines are an industry in secular decline,” said Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser. “If you are Time Inc., you really don’t have much of a leg to stand on.”
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