AZ Medien merges three trade magazines
AZ Medien is merging three trade journals and increasing the weekly workweek by two hours to 42 hours. There will be no wage increase for the coming year.
According to the company, it remains to be seen whether the efficiency enhancement program will lead to job cuts. The three technical magazines Megalink, Technica and Chemie will be merged. This is what company spokeswoman Monica Stephani said on Wednesday in response to a report by industry service Klein Report.
According to Klein Report, however, the restructuring measures have already led to major job cuts: at AZ-Medien, 20 employees were given notice of termination on Tuesday. A total of 1,600 job percentages are affected in the "Media Switzerland" division. At the specialist publishing house of AZ-Medien, 8 jobs will be cut, and within the IT and customer contact departments, 12 jobs will be cut. Economic changes were given as the reasons to the approximately 100 people who gathered at the AZ-Medien-Telli building on Neumattstrasse in Aarau at 3 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.
The increase in weekly working hours in the media company will apply to employees who are not subject to a collective labor agreement, among other things, as of June 1, 2016. Stephani spoke of a "harmonization" of weekly working hours within AZ Medien.
Publisher Peter Wanner's AZ Medien suffered a bottom-line loss of CHF 6 million in 2014. Sales rose by 2.3 percent to 247.7 million Swiss francs. (SDA)
