• Singapore Press Holdings' latest retrenchment exercise will affect 5 per cent of staff members
• This is its third round of retrenchments in three years
• The Creative Media and Publishing Union said that it was informed of the exercise in advance

SINGAPORE — Media and property company Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) will lay off 140 employees from its media sales and magazines operations as part of its latest restructuring efforts, it said on Tuesday (Aug 18).

This is the publicly listed firm’s third round of retrenchments in three years. 

The latest exercise will affect about 5 per cent of the media group’s staff members and was conducted to address the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its advertising revenue, SPH said in a statement.

In October last year, the firm announced that it was retrenching 130 employees from its media solutions division, magazines and smaller subsidiaries.

In October 2017, it retrenched 130 workers, including some from the newsrooms and integrated marketing division.

The latest round of layoffs will incur retrenchment costs of around S$8 million, SPH said.

The company also said that it has informed the Ministry of Manpower, the Creative Media and Publishing Union (CMPU) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) on the latest exercise.

“Affected staff will receive compensation on terms negotiated and agreed with the union,” it said.

It has also been working closely with the union and the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) to ensure that the affected employees receive the help and support they need during this period.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, CMPU said that SPH had informed the union in advance of its restructuring exercise.

The union added that it has been working closely with the SPH management to “ensure that the restructuring exercise was conducted in line with guidelines stated in NTUC’s Fair Retrenchment Framework as well as the Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment”.

Both the union and the media company jointly reviewed the selection criteria to ensure that the Singaporeans within the company were safeguarded as far as possible, CMPU said, ading that it negotiated for a fair compensation package for affected employees.

“During the restructuring exercise, CMPU leaders and representatives from NTUC’s e2i will provide support, advice and assistance to affected employees in the areas of employability training, career coaching and job placement.”

The union also said that its key priority during such an exercise is “to stand by our members, protect their interest and ensure that they are treated by dignity”.

SPH started a review of its media business last year to “provide advertisers with more effective marketing solutions by adopting an integrated sales approach across its different media platforms and titles”, it said in its statement.

It also brought together “the specialist appeal of its magazine titles and radio audiences with the broader mass market audiences of its newspaper titles” and has progressively rolled out self-service options for advertisers to customise their campaigns.

“SPH has also intensified its efforts to share its content resources across its print, digital and voice platforms.” 

The restructuring of these operations is what led to the redundancy of some roles, it added.

Since the pandemic hit, the company has reviewed its costs, cut back on discretionary spending and imposed pay cuts for its senior management.

In March, SPH announced that its directors, chief executive officer and senior management would take a voluntary pay cut of 10 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.

In July, it warned shareholders that its operating profit for the year ending Aug 31 is expected to be "significantly lower" than the S$187 million recorded a year earlier, because of the Covid-19 crisis.

SPH shares closed at S$1.11 on Monday, almost 50 per cent down from its highest traded price this year of S$2.21 on Jan 2.