Condé Nast to Slash 5% of Workforce in Restructuring
Condé Nast will cut around 5 percent of its current workforce in an effort to restructure the magazine publishing giant to adapt to the changing media environment.
The layoffs will impact around 270 Condé Nast employees. The company currently has around 5,400 full-time employees globally.
In a memo to employees on Wednesday, obtained by the New York Times, CEO Roger Lynch said the company is responding to digital advertising pressures and a decline in social media traffic. Lynch also noted that the video business of Condé Nast would be combined with the editorial brands.
“As many of you have heard me say before, we are in an industry that is changing,” the memo read. “Our audiences are changing, technology is changing, and what advertisers want from us is changing. With all of this change surrounding us, the only certain mistake is to not change ourselves.”
Lynch highlighted that “video has been a volatile area of the industry as audiences move to places like TikTok and YouTube Shorts,” which “haven’t found monetization models yet.”
“While we can’t control platform algorithms or how A.I. may change search traffic, we believe our long-term success will be determined by growing the many areas that we can control, including subscriptions and e-commerce, where we directly own the relationship with our audience,” Lynch wrote in the memo.
The publishing giant will be closing open job postings, reconsidering some projects, and attempting to reduce its real estate footprint, as well as conducting layoffs.
In October, it was announced that before the end of the year, the president of Condé Nast Entertainment Agnes Chu would be departing the company. Lynch announced Chu’s exit in a staff memo regarding senior leadership restructuring efforts.
Condé Nast editorial employees unionized with NewsGuild in March of 2022, forming a collective bargaining unit including employees of Vogue, Bon Appétit, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, and GQ.
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