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Verizon Media, HuffPost's Parent Company, Announces Sweeping Layoffs

The cuts will affect 7 percent of the workforce.
HuffPost

Verizon Media, which owns HuffPost, AOL and Yahoo along with other media brands, will lay off 7 percent of its workforce this week, a company spokeswoman confirmed.

The news comes more than a month after Verizon took a $4.6 billion write-down on HuffPost’s parent company, Oath (now called Verizon Media).

In the wake of the write-down, some news outlets reported that Verizon planned to cut 10 percent of Oath staff, or more than 1,000 jobs. Now, with the updated numbers, the number of jobs affected will be closer to 750. HuffPost staffers in the U.S. expected to see layoffs in their newsrooms, though it was not immediately clear how the cuts would affect the brand.

HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Lydia Polgreen directed questions about layoffs to a Verizon Media spokeswoman, who said the company’s goal “is to create the best experiences for our consumers and the best platforms for our customers.”

“Today marks a strategic step toward better execution of our plans for growth and innovation into the future,” she said.

This is the second swath of mass layoffs for HuffPost’s parent company. In 2017, Verizon cut about 2,100 people from the company. HuffPost reported at the time that 39 of those were HuffPost union members. The newsroom unionized with the Writers Guild of America in 2017.

The news comes as huge cuts continue to hit organizations elsewhere in the digital media sphere

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced Wednesday that the company would lay off 15 percent of its workforce, or about 250 jobs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Gannett, which owns USA Today and several other newspapers, also cut jobs in newsrooms across the U.S. on Wednesday.

Mic.com laid off the majority of its employees in November. In October, Refinery 29 announced a cut of 40 employees, while Super Deluxe announced that it would shut down.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.