Business Insider is laying off 8% of its workforce

Business Insider said Thursday it has laid off 8 percent of its staff, the latest in a wave of sharp job cuts in the media industry this month.

Barbara Peng, CEO of Business Insider, said this in an internal statement remark that the job cuts were part of a plan announced late last year to shift focus solely to reporting on business, technology and innovation.

“We have already begun to refocus teams and invest in areas that drive outsized value for our core audience,” Ms. Peng wrote. “Unfortunately, this also means that we have to scale back in some parts of our organization.”

Ms Peng added: “We are committed to building an enduring and sustainable Business Insider for years to come and beyond.”

In November, the company changed its name from Insider back to Business Insider, and co-founder, Henry Blodget, stepped aside as CEO. At the time, the publication's editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson said, wrote that it was a “new era” for the company: “Now it's about recommitting to what we are good at.”

A spokeswoman for Business Insider declined to comment Thursday on the details of the layoffs.

Business Insider previously laid off 10 percent of its staff in April 2023 due to economic pressures. At that time, Business Insider had approximately 950 employees around the world.

Business Insider is owned by German publisher Axel Springer, which also owns Politico. The company recently became embroiled in a dispute with billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman after its publication an article he said that his wife, Neri Oxman, a leading academic and architect, had plagiarized her dissertation. After an internal review, Business Insider defended the article. “The process we went through to report, edit and review the stories was good, as was the timing,” Ms Peng said this month.

The American media industry is reeling from the cuts in recent weeks: the Los Angeles Times has laid off more than 20 percent of its newsroom; Sports Illustrated has gutted its staff; Time magazine cut rolls; The Washington Post reported that 240 workers had accepted buyout offers. On Thursday, union members from both The New York Daily News and… Forbes walked off the track.