Forbes drops the layoff axe for the third time

Will there be anyone left to count the billionaires?

Hopping on October's layoff train, Forbes began its third round of massive cuts by laying off staff at its sales and marketing departments yesterday morning. The company laid off more staff today in its Atlanta and London bureaus as well as in its design and production departments in New York.

Remaining employees are anticipating a rumored editorial massacre by Wednesday afternoon.

Yesterday's cuts went almost unnoticed by editorial employees since the marketing and sales departments live in the Forbes Magazine building, which is located two streets away from the Forbes.com building in Manhattan. However, talk of the hush-hush layoffs circulated through the Blogosphere by noon, and by late afternoon, Steve Forbes sent an internal memo, acknowledging the cuts, and further pouring salt on trembling employees' wounds by implying that due to the company's inability to sell ads, the winning and innovative method of dealing with the recession is to lay off staff.