More Layoffs at New York Times Digital
April 12 -- Employees at the New York Times' Internet division have been told to expect additional layoffs next week as the company copes with a slumping economy and diminishing advertising revenues.
In an e-mail to employees, Martin Nisenholtz, chief executive of New York Times Digital, said he had hoped that no further layoffs would be needed after 69 jobs were eliminated in January.
"The economy, however, has not yet rebounded, and so we are forced to once again scale back our expenses, including staff," he wrote today.
Nisenholtz told employees that they'd be notified by the middle of next week whether their jobs were being eliminated.
The e-mail cited a New York Times Co. Webcast which Nisenholtz said "underscores the serious problems the Company is being forced to confront, namely higher newsprint prices, contracting advertising revenues and a slumping economy."
An employee who watched the Webcast said it raised the possibility of buyouts as a means of paring payrolls companywide. It was not clear whether buyouts would be an option at the digital division.
Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman, declined to provide details on the scope of the job reductions, saying staff members have not yet been notified.
Ad Spending Is Scarce
The January layoffs pared about 17 percent of the 400-member staff at New York Times Digital and was expected to save about $6 million in the division. Those cutbacks affected staffers working on the online news site as well as those at Abuzz, the site's attempt to develop its online community section, and the company's local Web service, nytoday.com.
The company at the time reported that the division lost $46 million in the first nine months of last year, up from $17.8 million in the same period the year before, although revenues had more than doubled.
Since then, bearish businesses have continued to shrink their ad budgets, hurting the media companies that rely on such revenues. The demise of many dot-com companies and the absence of political campaigning this year are also cited in the ad spending slowdown.
