Reuters seeks to eliminate five positions tied to Reuters Next

The Newspaper Guild, a union that represents approximately 400 employees of the global information provider Thomson Reuters, announced Friday that management is seeking “to eliminate five Guild positions from the recently condemned Reuters Next project by Nov. 29, almost half of the current New York-based online team,” reports Joe Pompeo of Capital New York.

Pompeo writes, “The affected employees will be offered voluntary buyouts equal to two weeks pay per year of service before involuntary layoffs are sought, according to the Guild.

“It was unclear whether any additional non-Guild employees would be terminated, though an unconfirmed number of positions have already been eliminated, according to sources and published reports. Reuters declined to comment on the scope of the cuts.

“The Guild news was more of the expected fallout from last week’s big announcement that the company has canceled Reuters Next, an ambitious web reboot that was meant to burnish a public brand for Reuters. Consumer-based advertising revenues are a small part of the bottom line at its parent company, which acquired the Reuters news service in 2008 and derives the lion’s share of its earnings from enterprise subscriptions to financial data and professional services, including its flagship wire. Indeed, the segment that encompasses Reuters Digital and the overall news division posted a $62 million loss in the second quarter of 2013.

“And so naturally, employees of the 162-year-old news service are left to wonder about the company’s commitment to Reuters’ consumer-facing projects going forward.”

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