News Corp. announces it will cut 1,250 positions this year

News Corp said Thursday it will cut about 1,250 positions, or 5% of its workforce, as layoffs have been taking place across the media and tech industries.

The company, which owns media properties including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Barron’s and HarperCollins, said the tough marcoeconomic environment and higher interest rates have been impacting the company.

On Thursday the company reported its quarterly results and said its quarterly revenue decreased 7% to $2.52 billion. Media companies, particularly digital media, has been contending with a challenging advertising market in recent months.

“Just as our company passed the stress-test of the pandemic with record profits, the initiatives now underway, including an expected 5 percent headcount reduction, or around 1,250 positions this calendar year, will create a robust platform for future growth,” CEO Robert Thomson said in the earnings release Thursday.

Thomson noted that despite “the obvious global challenges,” its professional information business at Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, saw revenues surge. Revenue for the overall Dow Jones segment was up 11% this quarter.

Last month Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch called off the proposed merger between News Corp and Fox Corp, after determining “a combination is not optimal for shareholders” of either of the companies at this time.

The withdrawn proposal came as News Corp has been in advanced talks to sell its stake in Move Inc., the parent company of Realtor.com, to commercial real estate company CoStar Group. The company said Thursday it was still engaged in those discussions.