WJAR-10’s Parent Company Sinclair Cutting 5% of Workforce
GoLocalProv Business Team
WJAR-10’s Parent Company Sinclair Cutting 5% of Workforce
"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt across all sectors of the economy, something that can have a profound impact on a company as diversified as ours," a Sinclair spokesperson told CNN Business in a statement. "From local businesses and advertisers to distributors and partners, no component of our business's ecosystem has been fully shielded from the impact of the global pandemic."
"In response to this, we are currently undergoing enterprise-wide reductions across our workforce, including corporate headquarters, to ensure we are well-positioned for future success," the Sinclair spokesperson added.
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Company in Focus
The company employs 9,211-- a 5% reduction would mean about 460 people will lose their jobs.
Employees were notified of the layoffs in a Wednesday evening memo sent from Chris Ripley, the company's president and chief executive officer.
It is unknown how the cuts impact the company’s Providence station WJAR-10.
"This decision was not made lightly," Ripley wrote. "Over the last year, we saw many of our peers make reductions en masse, a step we refrained from taking while we took cuts elsewhere, including in capital budgets, discretionary spending, and non-essential expenses."
“The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt across all sectors of the economy, something that can have a profound impact on a company as diversified as ours. From local businesses and advertisers to distributors and partners, no component of our business’s ecosystem has been fully shielded from the impact of the global pandemic. In response to this, we are currently undergoing enterprise-wide reductions across our workforce, including corporate headquarters, to ensure we are well-positioned for future success,” said the company.
Sinclair (SBGI), which operates 186 television stations across 87 markets in the United States, reported in February a 7% drop in total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020, year-over-year for the fourth quarter of 2019.