The Tamedia management has promised a layoff freeze until September 30, 2026, Impressum announced on Thursday. Impressum sees this as a success "in these difficult times for journalism", as the professional association writes.

In total, Tamedia, which belongs to the TX Group, cut 55 full-time positions. Many voluntary departures, early retirements and reductions in workload meant that the number of redundancies could be reduced. This amounts to 9 redundancies in editorial offices in German-speaking Switzerland and 8 in French-speaking Switzerland, i.e. 17.

Together with the job cuts, Tamedia also announced a strategic realignment at the end of August. In future, the media company intends to focus on its four strongest brands online Tages-Anzeiger, BZ Bernese Newspaper, Basel Newspaper and 24 Heures concentrate.

The Confederation and the Tribune de Genève are to retain their own online presences. However, titles with a smaller reach are to be integrated into the four major platforms. This affects the Zurich regional newspapers, for example The Land messenger, Zürcher Unterländer and Zurichsee-Zeitung. (SDA/swi)

In a drastic step, Ringier Media Switzerland announces that 75 jobs are to be cut. The planned measures, in connection with the merger of the Blick Group and the former Ringier Axel Springer Schweiz AG (RASCH), are intended to make the company an innovative pioneer in the media industry by bundling competencies and increasing efficiency. Service areas will be particularly affected, while editorial offices and Ringier Advertising will be less severely impacted.

CEO Ladina Heimgartner emphasizes the necessity of these measures in order to create a healthy and sustainable economic basis for Ringier Media Switzerland. The consultation process will run until January 19, 2024, with implementation of the new structure starting in February of the same year.

The merger of the Blick Group and the former Ringier Axel Springer Schweiz AG (RASCH) was announced in September. Following a comprehensive evaluation phase, the management has now presented the future organization. The declared aim is to become the most innovative media house in Switzerland with more than 20 established titles, a broad range of topics and concentrated expertise.

Bundling of competencies

In order to achieve this goal, existing structures have been analyzed with a focus on cost-effectiveness, reducing duplicate structures and building a modern organization. In order to ensure effectiveness, agility and efficiency, the management is planning to bundle competencies in various areas. In addition to not filling vacancies and reducing material costs, a reduction of around 75 positions is essential, as the media company writes in a corresponding press release.

Service areas particularly affected

The service areas, including user market support, marketing and mediatech, are apparently more affected than the editorial offices and Ringier Advertising. The adjustments were developed in 12 working groups consisting of employees, RMS management and a consulting firm specializing in company mergers.

CEO Ladina Heimgartner today informed employees and staff committees about the planned package of measures for the realignment of Ringier Media Switzerland. The consultation process ends on January 19, 2024, and the result will be communicated at the end of January. The new structure is to be implemented from February 2024.

Clear cut and then rest...

The CEO emphasized that the planned organizational structure would create a healthy economic basis for RMS. She expressed her regret that this goal could not be achieved without job cuts. Nevertheless, it was considered better to make a clear cut and then allow calm to prevail. Referring to the existing social plans, she mentioned that tried and tested instruments were available to cushion the consequences for the colleagues affected.

The company management has reviewed the proposals of the personnel committee, announced CH Media, based in Aarau, on Thursday. The aim remains to make as few redundancies as possible and to reduce the workforce through natural fluctuation. A social plan will be implemented for those affected by the redundancies

The media company employs almost 2,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland. CH Media justified the job cuts announced in November with the fact that a loss of CHF 6.9 million was recorded in the first half of 2023.

According to CEO Michael Wanner, the job cuts are "still urgent" and "unavoidable" in order to secure the future viability of the company, as stated in the press release. (SDA)

The announcement of the job cuts at Radio Fribourg comes in a "very difficult context" for a sector that is struggling with structural difficulties, said Fribourg's Director of Economic Affairs in an interview with the newspaper La Liberté out. He regrets the announced redundancies.

"Unlike others, Fribourg introduced media funding during the Covid pandemic that ran until the end of 2021," recalled Curty. The canton paid out more than 2.5 million francs in aid. As part of immediate measures, the federal government paid CHF 1.6 million to the Fribourg print media and CHF 1.3 million to Radio Fribourg/Freiburg to compensate for losses in advertising and sponsorship.

Reimbursement controversial

"We then actually received requests from Radio Fribourg for additional aid, which we were unable to meet," added the State Councillor. The medium complained on Wednesday about the lack of support from the canton and contested the repayment of an amount of 138,000 francs that had been granted as part of the Covid measures.

After the federal aid was awarded, it emerged that Radio Fribourg had been overcompensated, explained Olivier Curty. "The demand for reimbursement of the excess amount received is a normal procedure that is applied to any type of public aid awarded," emphasized the State Councillor.

On 1 May, Radio Fribourg had already announced that it would have to cut 3.6 jobs after recording a loss of half a million francs in the 2022 financial year. At the end of November, the company announced that it would be cutting a further six jobs. The reduction corresponds to 4.8 full-time equivalents. (SDA)

Tamedia informed employees about the plans on Thursday morning. Exactly where and how many jobs are to be cut will be announced by Tamedia in the coming weeks. The consultation phase will run until the end of October.

A total of 48 jobs will be cut in the editorial departments. Further jobs are to be cut at the associated publishing houses.

The job cuts in German-speaking Switzerland are part of a total savings package of CHF 6 million. 3.5 million Swiss francs of this will go to French-speaking Switzerland (Werbewoche.ch reported). The remaining CHF 2.5 million is attributable to Tamedia media titles in German-speaking Switzerland.

The media company justified the cost-cutting measures with the continuing decline in sales, especially of print products. The Imprint and Syndicom unions criticized the cost-cutting program in their statements.

The latest cost-cutting measures follow a comprehensive savings package of the past few years. In the past three years, the editorial teams of Tamedia titles have already had to save CHF 70 million. (SDA/swi)

This is the biggest cutback in the history of the US Internet company, which was founded in 1994. In November, US media had spoken of only 10,000 jobs. Amazon never officially confirmed this figure, but did not deny it either. Instead, Jassy has already hinted that even more employees could be laid off. Amazon most recently employed around 1.5 million people, most of them in the delivery and warehouse infrastructure.

"Amazon has weathered uncertain and uncertain economic times in the past and will continue to do so," said Group CEO Jassy on Thursday night, referring to the challenging economic environment in the face of high inflation and rising key interest rates.

Ordering boom over

He said the management team is aware of how difficult the layoffs are for those affected and does not make such decisions lightly. But the step was necessary to reduce costs. Amazon had already started to cut jobs on a large scale in November. Previously, the company had hired numerous employees due to the order boom during the pandemic. In retrospect, this turned out to be exaggerated.

The wave of layoffs was initially expected to primarily affect the loss-making device division around Echo smart speakers and the Alexa voice assistant program. But Jassy had already prepared employees for further job cuts in mid-November and signaled that there would also be layoffs in the coming year.

The job cuts are now to be even more far-reaching and include additional divisions. According to Jassy, management initially wanted to communicate this more confidentially to those affected. But this was not possible because the plans had been leaked. The U.S. financial newspaper "Wall Street Journal" had reported on this in advance, citing insiders.

Tech industry under pressure

Amazon's job cuts are further evidence of the abrupt end to the tech industry's jobs boom. After business flourished during the pandemic, the current market environment, marked by inflation and recession worries, is making life difficult for many companies. Tech stocks are under particularly heavy pressure on the stock market - the Nasdaq sector index fell by 33 percent last year.

Amazon's valuation has actually fallen by almost 50 percent in the past twelve months. The string of companies announcing layoffs is getting longer and longer. For example, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram parent Meta, as well as the online network Twitter, which was taken over by Tesla boss Elon Musk, have all announced job cuts. On Wednesday morning, the U.S. software manufacturer Salesforce also announced that it was getting rid of around ten percent of its approximately 79,000 employees.