Nation Media Group restructuring continued this week with more employees being laid off across the departments. The leading media house has pressed the refresh button, rattled by Covid-19 economic disruption, to accelerate the shift of its model of operation more to digital delivery of products.
The scalpel has now turned on unionizable journalists affiliated to the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ). Among those who were unlucky to be given redundancy letters on Tuesday and Wednesday are education writer Ouma Wanzala, court reporter Abuid Ochieng as well as Catherine Kitaka (Sub Editor), Judith Ogecha (Sub Editor) and Gracious Gitogho from the IT department.
Circulation and Printing
The restructuring targeting to offload about 100 employees started on 2nd July and is geared at cutting costs and hopefully growing revenues in the face of an economic slowdown. The first phase focused on top positions, sweeping away a number of managers and senior editors, as management sought to trim its payroll expenses.
Meanwhile, this week also saw the exit of Stellar Maina, head of graphic design in the advertising department and Dorcus Mahianda, a business manager, who is also a Nation Sacco Board Director. It is understood that the Circulation Department has lost nine employees while Nation printing plant based on Mombasa Road lost five managers.
Already, a number of managers including Nation Newspaper Division MD Francis Munywoki and senior newspaper editors have been pushed out, followed by the majority of presenters at NTV.
The process is expected to conclude with a leaner staff and reorganization of management and editorial structure in line with the new business model, which hinges on tech-driven products.
Most media houses are offloading employees to survive the Covid-19 pandemic disruption. Already Mediamax has sent home nearly 100, while Royal Media Services is the process of restructuring, as is Standard Group.
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