Vox Media Slashes 7% of Staff in New Round of Layoffs
‘FINANCIAL PRESSURES’
Layoffs have become an all-too-common feature of the media industry—but especially for Vox, which has now gone through two significant rounds of layoffs since July.
In what has become an all-too-common event in media and tech industries, another outlet has announced significant cuts to its payroll amid a “challenging economic environment.” Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff on Friday informed employees via a memo that the company will lay off seven percent of staff. This comes after the media firm—which owns Vox, The Verge, SB Nation, and New York magazine—cut 39 employees back in July and reduced new hiring in an attempt to head off “economic uncertainty.” (The company also laid off three percent of the staff in March after its merger with Group Nine.) In his message to staffers, Bankoff said “several different teams across Revenue, Editorial, Operations and Core Services” would be impacted. Additionally, he hinted that this would not be the end of the layoffs. “We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and tech industries have encountered,” he wrote in the memo obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast. He also noted that in the current “economic climate” the company wasn’t “able to sustain projects and areas of business” that didn’t perform “as anticipated.”
