News / 28.10.2015

UJF president: progress not layoffs needed at Sanoma Media

Negotiations started in August at Sanoma Media Finland and Sanoma’s other operations have ended with 241 layoffs. The company says that the downsizing will not for the time being mean that any of the corporation will cease publication of any of its titles.

Nearly 50 journalists from two major newspapers – Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat – and the Sanoma Lifestyle division will be laid off. Other cuts were made using more part-time positions, changing job descriptions and retirement plans.

UJF president Hanne Aho warned that unless the Sanoma group employs enough people it will not manage to grow.

“Now more than ever is the time to invest in development and sustaining quality output. And for this you need a workforce – people.”

UJF head of advocacy Petri Savolainen said that up to now there had been a strong emphasis on developing Sanoma’s titles. He said that it would be wrong for readers now to be deprived of good quality content.  

He also appealed to the committee set up in August this year by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to probe the state of domestic media market.

“These redundancy talks send another signal to the committee. We need concrete actions to assist the media. We need rational decisions by legislators that for instance would reduce VAT on newspapers and restrictions on advertising.”


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