BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced Tuesday that 47 of the 190 HuffPost employees in the US would be laid off and that HuffPost Canada would be shut down, affecting 23 employees. HuffPost union said the cuts in the US affected 33 of its members, representing 30% of its unit.
"Though BuzzFeed is a profitable company, we don't have the resources to support another two years of losses. The most responsible thing we can do is to manage our costs and ensure BuzzFeed — and HuffPost — are set up to prosper long-term." Peretti said."That's why we've made the difficult decision to restructure HuffPost to reach profitability more quickly. Our goal is for HuffPost to break even this year.
"[W]e aren't buying HuffPost because of its illustrious past or my personal connection; we pursued this opportunity because we are excited about the future of HuffPost and all the potential it has to continue to define the media landscape for years to come," Peretti wrote in an internal memo at the time of the sale.
HuffPost has operated without an editor in chief since Lydia Polgreen left in March of the last year to work at Gimlet Media. Peretti told staffers Tuesday that the company is in the final interview stages for a new top editor and expects to name a successor in the coming weeks.