Bauer Media has become the latest publisher to impose a company-wide pay freeze, saying “tough times such as these demand a hard response”.
The freeze applies to all staff at the group – which owns the former Emap Radio division and consumer magazines including Heat and Grazia.
But staff working for H Bauer, the separate division of the German publishing firm that owns Bella and Take A Break, are said to be unaffected.
A company spokeswoman said: “Bauer Media believes that we should prioritise our efforts and resources in our core product – on air, on the page and online.
“We have prioritised this spending above that of recruitment and on increasing salaries.”
Among the publishers to have announced pay freezes in the past six months are the Guardian Media Group, William Reed, Johnston Press, the Financial Times, Trinity Mirror and Newsquest.
Bauer is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe. It bought Emap’s consumer titles and radio division for £1.14bn in December 2007.
Emap’s B2B division was later sold to a consortium made up of the Guardian Media Group and private equity firm Apax.
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