BuzzFeed plans to lay off about 15 percent of its workforce, which translates into cutting about 250 jobs, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti confirmed the news in a memo to staff on Wednesday afternoon and said the layoffs were part of an effort to examine “trends in our business and the evolving economics of the digital platforms,” according to a memo obtained by media journalist Peter Kafka.
According to people familiar with the situation who spoke to WSJ, the company is looking for “potential merger combinations with other digital media players,” in WSJ’s words.
“We’ve developed a good understanding of where we can consolidate our teams, focus in on the content that is working and achieve the right cost structure to support our multi-revenue model,” he said. “We are confident the changes we are making will put us on a firm foundation and allow us to invest and grow sustainably for years to come.”
Memo from buzzfeed ceo @peretti after wsj lay-off story pic.twitter.com/4yPEapDNZE
— Peter Kafka (@pkafka) January 23, 2019
That’s a pretty long listicle: “250 people you won’t believe are unemployed!”
I’m really starting to doubt our unemployment numbers from this administration. Last week the unemployment claims were supposed to be 218,000, they came in at 213,000. Today they were revised down a thousand to 212,000. Today’s claims for last week came it 199,000 versus an expected 213,000.
Temporary holiday employment should be falling off, cold should numb construction activity, and we have many thousands of federal workers who could file for unemployment. Supposedly, many federal contractors are out of work and unemployment numbers still keep falling? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Seriously, this just does not make any sense for the claims to drop by that big of a margin.
The shutdown will affect the labor participation force number, but not the number of new unemployment claims – for two reasons. 1. if federal workers apply for unemployment, they may lose their right to back pay once the shutdown ends, or have to repay any unemployment benefits they do receive. Most won’t want to take that risk. 2. Contractors who simply lose work/jobs because of the shutdown aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits.
Sure, they would have to repay any benefits once they went back to work and received their back pay. I would find that more attractive than having no income at all to pay bills with. Many federal contractors have employees that work for an hourly wage and they are not required to keep working without a paycheck. Something does not add up.
Mocking tweet from Trump in 3…2…1…