Zürcher Oberland Medien restructures and announces layoffs
Zürcher Oberland Medien is restructuring its editorial department and introducing a producer-based system. The office in Dübendorf will be closed, and a total of seven employees will be laid off. The reasons for this are declining revenue and changes in media consumption.
Until now, the editors of Zürcher Oberland Medien have written articles, done the layout, managed the online presence and planned editions. This is common practice at many regional newspapers, but now the process is changing.
A small team of producers will now design the daily and weekly newspapers, while the majority of the editorial team will write articles. "This puts the story at the center of our work", Editor-in-Chief Christian Brändli was quoted as saying in a press release issued by Zürcher Oberland Medien on Tuesday.
The consequences of the reorganization are seven job cuts and one closed location. The office in Dübendorf will no longer be operated. Three redundancies affect the editorial department, three the secretariat and one the publishing house.
Zürcher Oberland Medien, based in Wetzikon, publishes the daily newspapers Zürcher Oberländer and Scoreboard of Ustereight local weekly newspapers and operates the online portal Züriost. The company employs 122 people and generated total sales of CHF 28.6 million in 2016. (SDA)
