Media Companies Have Cut Over 20,000 Jobs This Year

The media industry was beset with a series of layoffs impacting a number of sectors in 2023. Earlier this month, Challenger, Gray and Christmas, an outplacement firm that tracks employment figures, said over 20,000 media jobs have been eliminated this year. This is the largest number of cuts in employment since 2020 when Covid-19 was raging and over 30,000 workers were laid off.

Forbes reports the figure is also six times higher than the number of job losses in 2022 when several large media companies including Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney and others had undergone a series of layoffs impacting thousands of media workers.

There are several reasons cited for this year’s cutbacks, including: challenging economic headwinds, inflation, a sluggish ad economy, competition, shifts in consumer behavior, less than robust subscriber counts, changes in corporate strategy, reorganization, ongoing adjustments post-Covid, advances in technology such as AI and placating Wall Street investors. The layoffs continued into fourth quarter. Paul Wolfe, author of Human Beings First, notes layoffs are more prevalent in November and December when corporations are planning next year’s budgets.

Challenger, Gray and Christmas also noted that among the 20,000 job losses in media, almost 2,700 occurred in the news industry. The elimination of jobs in the news industry this year were across broadcast, digital and print industries. Last year the news industry had over 1,800 layoffs and more than 1,500 layoffs in 2021. More recent media layoffs include CBC, Vice Media and more.