Vice to cut 250 staff worldwide to ‘cement its place’ in the future

Vice Media is planning to cut 10 per cent of its staff globally, resulting in up to 250 job losses.

The millennial media brand said cuts would fall in “all departments at every level”, according to The Hollywood Reporter which broke the news.

Vice, which has around 2,500 employees internationally, plans to reorientate its business to “focus on growth areas like film and television production and branded content”, a spokesperson said.

Vice global chief executive Nancy Dubuc told staff in an email: “Having finalised the 2019 budget, our focus shifts to executing our goals and hitting our marks.

“We will make Vice the best manifestation of itself and cement its place long into the future.”

Employees in the UK, US and Canada are expected to be notified today if they are affected by the restructuring, with international branches, including the UK, set to face cuts over the next few weeks.

A statement from the Vice union said on Twitter: “Terrible news at Vice today. But we’re here for our affected coworkers. Solidarity in the good times and the bad.”

As part of the changes, Vice will stop organising its departments by country, instead creating a new international business structure based around five areas: news, digital, TV, Studios production division, and ad agency Virtue.

Dubuc pinpointed Vice News online as a future area of growth, along with its sales, Studios and Virtue divisions.

As well as news and culture website Vice, the media company owns bi-monthly lifestyle magazine I-D, film production company Pulse and pubs and restaurant group Old Blue Last in the UK.

Press Gazette reported last month that the brand’s digital arm in the UK, Vice UK Ltd, had seen revenue fall by £10m in 2017. However Vice’s UK businesses as a whole saw turnover rise to £103m, it claimed.

The cuts continue a brutal fortnight for digital media publishers.

Buzzfeed has cut 15 per cent of its workforce globally, Verizon Media Group (owner of Huffpost, Yahoo and AOL) is laying off 7 per cent of its staff – although Huffpost UK is understood to be unaffected – and women’s lifestyle website The Pool went into administration yesterday.

Topics in this article : Vice