~NightSky

By Michael Snyder

Should any of us be surprised that the news industry is being hit by a massive wave of layoffs? Survey after survey has shown that the American people have lost faith in the mainstream media, and millions of us have decided to turn to other sources for news and information. Mainstream news outlets have been bleeding viewers and readers for years, and now many of the biggest names in the news industry are losing staggering amounts of money. It was only a matter of time before we witnessed large scale layoffs, and now they are here.

Of course it isn’t just the mainstream media that is laying off workers. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of layoffs in the United States in 2023 was 98 percent higher than it was in 2022…

The pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in 2023, with the number of layoffs surging 98% compared with the previous year.

That is according to a new report published by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which found that companies planned 721,677 job cuts last year, a substantial increase from the 363,832 layoffs reported in 2022.

The problem could get worse in 2024 as the labor market continues to soften in the face of high interest rates and stubborn inflation.

But it is true that the news industry is being hit particularly hard. For example, Time Magazine just announced that it will be laying off workers “across several departments including editorial, tech, sales, and TIME Studios”…

Time Magazine laid off an uncertain number of staffers across departments on Tuesday, a move CEO Jessica Sibley called “The necessary step we must take in order to drive our business forward and improve our financial position.”

In an internal memo to staff, obtained by Semafor’s Max Tani, Sibley announced the cuts.

“We have made the difficult decision to eliminate roles today across several departments including editorial, tech, sales, and TIME Studios,” Sibley wrote to staff. “We are immensely grateful for the contributions of these talented team members during their tenure at TIME.”

When I was a kid, Time Magazine was very highly respected and my parents would often have a copy of it on the coffee table.

But now it is dying just like the rest of the mainstream media.

Just look at what is happening to the largest newspaper in California. The Los Angeles Times has decided to eliminate “slightly more than 20% of the newsroom”…

The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, facing what senior leadership described this week as a “financial crisis,” commenced a round of painful layoffs across the newsroom, a workforce reduction that is set to be one of the most severe in the newspaper’s 142-year history.

The cuts will impact at least 115 journalists, a person familiar with the matter told CNN, or slightly more than 20% of the newsroom. Some 94 of those cuts will be among unionized employees, union chief Matt Pearce said, meaning a quarter of the union will be laid off.

Should we be sad that the Los Angeles Times is imploding?

I don’t think so.

Elsewhere, Paramount plans to give the axe to hundreds of workers…

Amid speculation about its future, Paramount Global is proceeding with a new wave of staff reductions in February, sources tell Deadline. I hear the cuts will impact hundreds of employees across the entire company.

For the past several days, there has been chatter that Paramount layoffs of about 800 are imminent. It followed a WSJ report in December that the company was mulling the potential elimination of more than 1,000 jobs in early 2024 to rein in costs.

Paramount is the parent company of CBS, and so it is likely that the news division at CBS is about to get even smaller.

Of course the news division at NBC is shrinking as well…

NBC News has laid off several dozen staffers, the latest of dozens of companies to start off the new year with bad news for its employees, USA TODAY confirmed Friday.

A source familiar with the plans said that employees were given a 60-day notice and will get severance packages and outplacement.

Sports journalism has also fallen on hard times.

At this point, it appears that the future of Sports Illustrated is very much in doubt and many of the magazine’s employees will now be searching for new employment…

The future of iconic magazine Sports Illustrated looked dire Friday after the publisher announced mass layoffs.

The Arena Group — which had been roiled by reports that the fabled magazine published AI-generated content — admitted to failing to make a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group due this week.

As a result, the publicly-traded Arena announced Thursday it would make a “significant reduction” in its workforce of more than 100 journalists.

All of the stories that I just shared with you have happened within the last seven days.

It is crazy how rapidly things are moving now.

Of course many other industries are shedding workers too. Earlier today, we learned that SolarEdge will be laying off approximately 16 percent of its workforce…

SolarEdge, a company that makes inverters for solar panels, will shed about 16% of its workers.

The company said Sunday roughly 900 people will lose their jobs in a restructuring plan “designed to reduce operating expenses and align its cost structure to current market dynamics.” It called industry conditions “challenging” in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

And Vroom Automotive will be laying off “most of its employees” as it permanently shuts down its used vehicle operations…

In an SEC filing and an announcement on its website Monday evening, Vroom Automotive said that it shut down as used vehicle dealer after Ally suspended its credit line. Vroom will no longer retail any of its vehicles. It will sell its inventory on the wholesale market. It will lay off most of its employees. It will only keep its subprime auto-lending platform United Auto Credit (UACC), and its used-vehicle listing platform CarStory, both of whose clients are other used-vehicle dealers.

For many more layoff announcements, please see my previous article entitled “Alert! Here Is A List Of 20 Large Companies That Have Just Decided To Conduct Mass Layoffs”.

It appears that the U.S. economy has reached a critical tipping point. The economic outlook for 2024 is not good at all, and employers are racing to cut payrolls in anticipation of what is coming.

If you currently have a good job that you value, hold on to it as tightly as you can.

Because a lot more layoffs are on the way, and you don’t want to be without a chair when the music stops playing.