Following mass layoffs at Quartz and Vice Media, The Atlantic has announced that it will be laying off 68 staff members as a result of the pandemic, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
Outgoing owner David Bradley told employees that cuts are coming despite huge boosts in readership and subscriptions amid the publication’s coverage of the spread of COVID-19.
The cuts will affect the magazine’s live events business, “given the uncertainty about when in-person events will return. We are also making a number of reductions in our sales and marketing team; are closing our video department; and are losing a small number of newsroom positions,” the publication writes.
It further adds, “Our journalists are setting the terms of the national conversation, and our readership has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic. We have signed up more than 90,000 new subscribers since March. But these crucial gains have not forestalled abrupt and dramatic losses in our advertising and live events businesses.”
The magazine is also implementing a temporary companywide salary freeze, along with pay cuts for executives.
Affected employees will be notified by 11 a.m. E.T.
Those laid off will receive four months of salary plus two weeks for each year of service beyond the first year, along with health insurance for the remainder of the year.
