Canada's Globe & Mail asks for staff cuts as it seeks to reduce costs

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/sep/09/canadas-globe-mail-asks-staff-cuts

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Canada’s Globe & Mail has called on staff to take up a voluntary redundancy offer, reports the Financial Post. According to the article, citing Globe sources, the publisher’s chief executive, Phillip Crawley, told staff the paper needed to cut 40 jobs.

Given that the newspaper has about 650 employees, it is not a savage cutback. But it is further confirmation of the increasingly tough situation facing Canada’s newspaper industry.

With print circulation falling and digital subscriptions failing to fill the revenue gap, the Globe & Mail is hardly alone in facing up to the disruption of the digital revolution.

The difference, however, is that Canada’s papers appear to be suffering a steeper downturn than in some other advanced economies.

Although these latest cuts follow two previous rounds of job-cutting, in 2014 and 2013, it is clear that the Toronto-based Globe has weathered the storm better than all of its competitors.

In the transition from print to screen, it has made substantial online gains in readership since it instituted a metered paywall three and a half years ago.

The Financial Post article refers to a July report by the media research firm, Vividata, which found that the Globe’s weekly digital readership stood at 4.5m, giving it the largest reach of any single Canadian newspaper.

In fact, it is greater than the total number for all of the publications of Torstar Corp, the country’s second largest newspaper chain.

The Globe and Mail is owned by the Woodbridge Company, a private entity that acts as the chief investment vehicle for the Thomson family.

Source: Financial Post