Thomson Reuters on Tuesday revealed plans to cut 3,200 jobs — roughly 12 percent of its workforce — by 2020 in an attempt to cut costs and “streamline the business,” according to the news arm of the company.
“This is in reference to our chief operating officer’s presentation at Thomson Reuters Investor Day today, where headcount figures were mentioned. Almost all of these reductions have already been announced to employees, so there isn’t anything new here,” a spokesperson for the company told TheWrap.
The same rep declined to say when or in what divisions the cuts will take place.
The news comes after TheWrap reported Monday that the company had trimmed more than a dozen staffers from the Reuters news service. Among them were several senior editors from the U.S.-based Americas desk, including editor Toni Reinhold, her deputy, Clive McKeef, and U.S. public finance editor Daniel Bases.
“Layoffs were described to us as a restructuring,” one U.S.-based employee told TheWrap on Monday, who also said similar editorial cuts hit foreign bureaus in the U.K., Poland, Italy and in Asia.
On the Americas desk, the layoffs sent a tremor through the newsroom and prompted an internal letter of protest to desk chief Howard Goller that called the dismissals “an incredibly foolish move.”
In October, Thomson Reuters inked a $20 billion deal with private equity giant Blackstone, which acquired a majority stake in the company’s lucrative Financial & Risk unit which provides specialized (and expensive) info mostly to financial consumers.