Layoffs coming to WSJ’s overseas bureaus

The Wall Street Journal is expected to make layoffs in its overseas editorial operations this week, reports Gerry Smith of Bloomberg News.

Smith writes, “It’s unclear how many jobs will be cut, according to Timothy Martell, executive director of the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees 1096, which represents workers at Dow Jones, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. that owns the newspaper.

“A spokeswoman for Dow Jones responded to a question about the cuts by saying ‘this is ongoing work as part of the WSJ 2020 program announced last year. We remain committed to covering the region and will continue to do so robustly.’

“In October, Dow Jones Chief Executive Officer William Lewis described ‘WSJ 2020’ as ‘our action plan for the next three years — a plan that capitalizes on mobile-driven membership efforts and reflects the re-balancing of our revenue streams in the modern marketplace.’

“Tuesday’s cuts are the second round of layoffs at the Journal in three months. In November, the paper cut staff while folding the Greater New York section into another section of the print newspaper and merging other sections like Business & Tech and Money & Investing.”

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