American Express Publishing Lays Off 33

it keeps coming...straight from ADage.com

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- American Express Publishing, which publishes titles such as Food & Wine and Travel & Leisure, laid off another 33 people today as part of a drive by its parent company, American Express Co., to cut its head count 10%, a company spokeswoman confirmed.

Travel & Leisure is published by American Express Publishing.

Travel & Leisure is published by American Express Publishing.

"We wish this wasn't necessary, but given our performance outlook, these steps must be taken at this time," she said. American Express Publishing also cut 22 jobs last October. After today's layoffs, about 400 employees remain.

Still struggling

Together with last week's 250 layoffs at Meredith Corp. and another 19 at Forbes, today's cut by AmEx Publishing demonstrates that media companies didn't finish retrenching when they finished 2008. Many are still struggling to handle the recession and, in the case of traditional media, continued pressure from new media.

In another example, Gannett said today that it will force all its employees to take the equivalent of a week off without pay during the first quarter of 2009. American Media, meanwhile, decided it couldn't afford to continue fulfilling more than 300,000 subscriptions to Country Weekly.

American Express Co. said last October that it planned to cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10% of its global workforce, in a bid to cut costs by $1.8 billion. The layoffs at American Express Publishing today bring the division in line with that plan.