SRF achieves savings target and suspends planned job cuts
Swiss Radio and Television SRF has suspended a job cut planned for the current year. The savings associated with the job cuts announced for the end of 2021 have already been achieved in other ways, according to SRF.
SRF's media office confirmed at the request of Keystone-SDA a corresponding report that appeared in newspapers of the "CH Media" group on Friday.
"SRF has saved around 26 million Swiss francs since 2020 and has thus fulfilled its savings mandate," SRF Chief Financial Officer Guy Luginbühl announced in response to an inquiry. The job cuts originally announced for 2023 have therefore been suspended. The savings targets were achieved through lower external programming, production and operating costs.
As an example, SRF cites a significant reduction in real estate costs due to the opening of the Radio Hall on the Leutschenbach campus and the associated abandonment of the Brunnenhof radio studio in Zurich.
On balance, only a few jobs cut
After a reduction in staff in 2021, the annual report for 2022 shows a higher number of full-time positions than in 2021, with 42 more at SRF and 99 more at SRG as a whole at the end of the year. On average for the year, the headcount increased by twelve to 2277 at SRF and by 23 to 5518 full-time positions at SRG.
At the end of 2021, SRF announced the elimination of 145 positions by the end of 2023. According to Luginbühl, 88 full-time positions were eliminated at the beginning of 2021, 27 of them via layoffs. The reduction and reallocation of another 100 positions by the end of 2022 had been carried out largely without layoffs.
The fact that the number of full-time positions has not fallen significantly is due to the simultaneous increase in the number of positions. According to Luginbühl, there is an increase in jobs for the digital transformation, among other things. Since SRF achieved its savings targets early on, it was also possible to accelerate the increase in jobs last year. (SDA)
