Taunton President's Memo on Layoffs

Taunton, the Newtown, Connecticut-based publisher of hobbyist magazines including Fine Woodworking, cut nine employees from its workforce. Here's president Sue Roman's memo to her staff.

All--

With the prolonged slowdown in the economy in general and the homebuilding market in particular, revenue in our core business, like in many other healthy businesses, isn’t growing as fast as our costs. As a result, it is necessary to cut costs.

The budget for fiscal year 2009, which started for Taunton on June 1, reflects this cost-cutting. In addition to cutting appropriate operating expenses, we also looked at our biggest cost center, personnel. Where ever possible we eliminated open and new positions. However there were nine currently-filled positions that were also eliminated.

We recognize the impact on the people whose jobs were eliminated and for the departments with positions cut, and we’ll do all we can to make the transition a smooth one.

Please also be assured that in the midst of this economic climate, Taunton remains a very strong company with healthy financial resources. We will continue to invest in new products and new capabilities--the web, the cooking market, green building and advertising--at the same time that we keep a close eye on our current expenses. Both are necessary to remain a healthy, vibrant business. Tomorrow many managers will be offsite in the morning to review our fiscal 2009 plans and you can look forward to hearing more about the many new and exciting initiatives underway.

Sue

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