Time Inc. employees could be facing another round of layoffs in 2014, executives at the publishing giant confirmed Monday.
Layoffs are a “painful but necessary” step, Norm Pearlstine, Time Inc.’s new chief content officer, said at a quarterly management meeting, according to several sources who were there.
Pearlstine, responding to a question from Time editor Nancy Gibbs during a Q&A session, did not say how deep the cuts would be.
In early 2013, the company chopped about 500 people from the payroll, equal to about 6 percent of its workforce at the time.
In a question about “native advertising,” which the company plans to employ more in hopes of helping grow top-line revenue, Pearlstine said he did not think this new form of sponsored content by advertisers was dramatically different from the advertorials that have run in Time Inc. magazines for years.
As long as the native ads were clearly marked so readers know they are not editorial, he had no problem with them, he said.
CEO Joe Ripp also said the spinoff was “on target” for the second quarter of 2014, refuting a report by 24/7WallStreet.com that it would be pushed back into the second half of the year to allow changes implemented this year to take root to turn around lackluster financial results.