Condé Nast lays off U.S. 100 employees, furloughs another 100 staffers

Condé Nast has pink-slipped about 100 employees in the U.S. and is putting another 100 on unpaid leave for several months as the COVID-19 crisis cuts into the media company’s business.

The New York-based company, whose titles include the New Yorker, Wired, Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ, had about 6,000 employees worldwide at the start of 2020.

CEO Roger Lynch announced the cutbacks in a memo to staff Wednesday. One month ago, he told employees that layoffs were in the offing, along with other cost-cutting measures.

“Today, we are taking additional cost savings actions that are specific to our U.S. teams,” Lynch said in the May 13 memo. “These steps will result in just under one hundred team members in the U.S. leaving Condé Nast, and a similar number of people in roles that can’t effectively work during this period being temporarily furloughed. There will also be a handful of people with reduced work schedules.”

Lynch joined the company about a year ago after heading up Pandora and Sling TV.

Condé Nast’s previously enacted cost-saving measures included pay cuts of 10%-20% for those earning at least $100,000 per year and a 50% salary reduction for Lynch and outside board members. The company also is deferring until 2021 several big strategic initiatives, including the rollout of Condé Nast’s Copilot content-management system to additional markets this year; the buildout of global internal events spaces; and a global employee intranet.