Billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. said it will cut 5% of its staff this year, or about 1,250 positions, across its empire after earnings plunged in its book publishing, news media and digital real estate divisions.
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. said it will cut 5% of its staff this year, or about 1,250 positions, across its empire after earnings plunged in its book publishing, news media and digital real estate divisions.
The reductions are “a necessary response” amid a “surge in interest rates and persistent inflation,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson said on the New York-based media conglomerate’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday.
Employees will be let go across all the group’s businesses, which include the Wall Street Journal, publisher HarperCollins, and The Times and The Sun newspapers in the UK, according to Thomson. The annual savings will be at least $130 million, he said.
Sales fell 7.2% to $2.52 billion in the fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, the publisher reported Thursday. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were down 30% to $409 million.
News Corp. had about 25,500 employees, including 9,000 in the U.S., 5,500 in Britain and 8,000 in Australia as of June, it said in its latest annual report. Some 4,000 are represented by unions.
The announcement is the latest in a string of job cuts across technology and media businesses, following reductions of 7,000 at The Walt Disney Co. and 6,650 at Dell Technologies Inc. earlier this week.
Management declined to comment on the potential sale of News Corp.’s stake in online real estate business Move Inc., after Murdoch withdrew a proposal to rejoin News Corp with Murdoch’s other business Fox Corp.
Shares fell 1.4% to $20.59 on Thursday in New York.
(Updates with additional details throughout. A previous version of this story corrected the spelling of the CEO’s name.)
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