Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) held a restructuring exercise on Tuesday, Aug. 18, laying off 140 employees from the Media Solutions Division (MSD) and SPH Magazines.

According to SPH, this accounts for about 5 per cent of the group's overall headcount, and will incur retrenchment costs of approximately S$8 million.

Covid-19 has significantly impacted advertising revenue

SPH's CEO Ng Yat Chung said that subscription and readership of SPH's news titles have "increased since the onset of Covid-19", but the Covid-19 pandemic has also significantly impacted their advertising revenue.

"A more integrated approach of producing and selling our content across our various platforms will allow us to deal more efficiently and effectively with the new level of demand we are seeing from our advertisers and audience," said Ng.

According to SPH's statement, the group has informed the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the Creative Media and Publishing Union (CMPU) and National Trades Union Congress on this exercise.

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

"CMPU and SPH management jointly reviewed the selection criteria to ensure that the Singaporean Core within the company is safeguarded as far as possible. The union also negotiated for a fair compensation package for affected employees", said CMPU in a media statement.

SPH also said that it have been working closely with the union and the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) to ensure that affected staff will receive the help and support they require during this period.

SPH's last retrenchment exercise was in October 2019

This is SPH's third round of retrenchment since 2017.

In October 2019, SPH announced that it will retrench 5 per cent of its staff by the end of the year, despite earning a profit of S$213.2 million for the financial year which ended in Aug. 31, 2019.

In October 2017, the media group cut 230 jobs, 130 of which were retrenchments.

The remaining job reductions resulted from retirement, termination of contracts and roles that were eliminated due to restructuring of work processes.

This resulted in a total of 15 per cent of the staff in newsrooms and sales operations being reduced.

According to SPH, the company has reviewed its costs, cut back on discretionary spending, and instituted pay cuts for senior management since the start of the Covid-19 crisis.

In March this year, SPH announced that its directors, which includes the CEO, and senior management would be taking voluntary pay cuts of 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

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