Offset Paperback to Layoff 69

It is not a surprise to most of us that print publishing companies have had a tough time in the last couple of years. As the e-book and e-reader gain in popularity, and beat them on the price point many, if not all, publishing companies have found themselves in a little bit of a budget crunch. Add that to an already poor economic climate and you find yourself in a climate that is just right for large-scale job losses.

This time it was the workers at Offset Paperback who had to take the job hit. Last week the company made the announcement that they were getting ready to let go of just shy of 70 workers. While that may not seem like a lot of jobs lost, when you compare it to some of the massive layoffs that workers in other sectors have had to endure, it is about 12 percent of the company’s work force.

The company is currently attributing the loss of jobs to an increasing amount of competition from the e-book market, which they claim are impacting publishers everywhere. While many companies are looking to move to a completely digital model there are some drawbacks to that approach. The biggest of the known drawbacks is that a digital operation takes a significantly smaller number of people to run the operation, meaning that fewer workers are required.

They are not the only publishing company to layoff workers in the past couple of months. You may recall our earlier coverage  of layoffs at Group Publishing. For those of you who missed it here is an excerpt, “Group Publishing, a US private company that creates resources, training, mission and management tools for churches, removed 26 workers at its office in Loveland, Colorado in line with its restructuring plan. Group officials said that the impacted staff received severance packages based on their tenure. Group also arranged a contract with Career Builders, a company that helps people to find employment, to assist the 26 laid off workers during the transition period. Group employed about 289 employees at its Loveland facility before the reductions. The company has been operating in the area since 1974.” That company laid off despite having a profitable year.

Other workers include Decembers layoffs at the New York Times, “It is confusing at best and today it is happening to the staff in some of The New York Times Company newsrooms, as they are getting ready to find out if they get to keep their jobs. The parent company for The New York Times is finalizing the sales of its Regional Media Group to Halifax Media Holdings this week and that means that there are some very high chances of staff layoffs.”

Before the layoffs Offset Paperback was the employer of about 515 workers. The layoffs of the 69 workers will go into effect on Jan. 27. At the current moment the company has not given any word as to whether or not another round of layoffs will follow, or what kind of  severance employees will be given, if any.