Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) will retrench 5 percent of its staff in the media group by end-November 2019.

SPH announced its retrenchment exercise in a statement on Thursday, Oct. 17.

But it did not provide the exact number of staff affected.

The exercise will incur retrenchment costs of about S$8 million.

The news might be difficult to stomach for those laid off as the company still turned a profit, but less so than before.

This comes as SPH reported on Thursday that its net profit fell 23.4 percent to S$213.2 million for the financial year ended Aug. 31.

Revenue from the media segment fell by S$78.9 million, or 12 percent, to S$576.9 million.

This occurred after total print advertisement revenue decreased by 14.9 percent, or S$57 million.

Total circulation revenue declined by S$11 million, or 7.3 percent.

Print revenue continues to decline

SPH’s media group is its largest arm.

It consists of its newspaper, magazine, radio and book publishing businesses, among others.

It said its total audience across its platforms has increased, but its print revenue continues to decline.

“In addition, the uncertain macroeconomic outlook this year has seen consumer demand fall and advertisers scaling back on advertising spend. This is a good time for SPH to consolidate its strengths as a media owner and streamline its media and magazines operations,” said the company.

SPH said it will be restructuring its media solutions and magazine business to enable integrated selling across all platforms.

The last major retrenchment exercise carried out by SPH was in 2017.

SPH CEO statement

SPH chief executive officer Ng Yat Chung said that the restructuring exercise is “necessary” to enhance the company’s operational efficiency and strengthen its position in the challenging economic and media environment.

“The restructuring will enable us to deliver more effective solutions across various media platforms to meet the evolving demands of our advertising customers. We continue to invest in the newsrooms and digital media capabilities while remaining disciplined about cost,” he added.

Readers are told they can benefit from the greater sharing of content resources within SPH across platforms and titles.

SPH said: “For example, HWZ’s tech expertise will help beef up the tech columns of news titles such as The Straits Times and The Business Times. Some of the content can also be ported over to radio and even SPH’s out-of-home screens in lifts and commercial areas.”

SPH said it has informed the Ministry of Manpower and the NTUC on this exercise.

Affected staff will receive compensation on terms negotiated and agreed with the staff union.