Chicago-based online jobs board CareerBuilder laid off more than 300 workers late last week, a company executive confirmed Wednesday.This news was broken several days ago at Gannett Blog and Cheezhead.
Chief marketing officer Richard Castellini said the cuts took place on Friday and were spread across various units of the company and geographically, but mostly focused on CareerBuilder's small business segment. Castellini declined to give a current headcount. The company's Web site puts the total number of employees at more than 2,000. This suggests that roughly 15 percent of the staff was cut.
Castellini noted that the layoffs took place the same day the U.S. government announced that 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the largest one-month job loss in 34 years. He said the cuts were "a difficult decision for everyone involved" but necessary to ensure that the company remains healthy next year and beyond.
"When we forecast our business for 2009, the growth rates we had anticipated weren't going to be in line with where we were currently seeing the business," Castellini said.
The company is still pursuing growth and "large-scale brand-building," Castellini said. CareerBuilder will run an ad during the 2009 Super Bowl.
Media company Gannett Co. has a controlling 50.8 percent stake in CareerBuilder. Gannett and Chicago-based Tribune Co. had equal stakes in the company until September, when Tribune Co. sold part of its interest to Gannett for $135 million. Tribune Co. now owns 30.8 percent of CareerBuilder, and the remaining shareholders are the McClatchy Co. and Microsoft Corp.
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