Warner Bros Layoffs 2014: 1,000 Jobs to be Cut

Earlier, Sprint announced that it will lay off at least 2,000 of their employees as part of their efforts to cut costs and reduce continuing operating losses. Now it's Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros Entertainment turn to make the same heart-breaking announcement.

Around 1,000 jobs will be cut to reduce costs, Reuters said.

New York Times said that the 1,000 jobs to be removed represent 12.5 percent of the studio's total staff. The Wall Street Journal said the company has an "8,000-person global workforce."

The announcement, Reuters said, was made by Kevin Tsujihara, Warner Bros. Burbank, California-based unit's Chief Executive Officer, through a memo to staff dated Tuesday. The divisions that will be hugely affected by the layoff include finance and information technology, it said.

"We examined every aspect of our businesses to ensure that we are restructuring in a way that would allow us to minimize the impact," New York Times quoted Tsujihara as saying.

Same report says that Tsujihara hinted about the layoff through a statement at an investor conference held recently. He said that the studio is aiming to reduce annual overhead costs by $200 million. The layoff came after "weak domestic box-office sales and a challenged television business." Also, Time Warner's Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Bewkes earlier pushed for moves to cut costs, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

Reuters noted that the layoff is a result of the failed deal with Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. which in July offered an $85-a-share takeover.

Meanwhile, around seven percent of the 2,400 employees of Time Warner division, HBO, will also to be fired, Reuters revealed.

The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, said that 10 percent of the 15,000 employees of the Turner Entertainment, parent of TNT and CNN, will be laid off. New York Times noted that Turner Broadcasting, Time Warner's cable network division, had already cut over 1,400 jobs recently while HBO already removed 150.

Reuters citing Tsujihara's memo said that most of the job cuts will be announced this week. The finance and the technical operations groups will get job cuts immediately, it added.

"International territories will proceed according to local policies and protocol, and most of their changes will be announced in the early part of next year," Reuters quoted Tsujihara's memo as saying.

Those that will remain unaffected by the layoffs include film and television production groups, The Wall Street Journal said. The report also said that the savings from the layoffs may be used to add to the budget for content production.

New York Times said that Warner which has dominated the domestic box office in "five of the last 10 years" is currently now at rank 3 behind 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Studios. Another group to be affected by the layoffs includes Home entertainment, it added.