“Not a level that we can afford to sustain”: Singapore’s SPH Media lays off 34 tech workers

On November 4, SPH Media announced that they are laying off 34 employees amid a restructuring of the company’s technology division.

This layoff affects 10% of tech workers across various teams and ranks.

The Straits Time reported that Loh Yuh Yiing, the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Kaythaya Maw, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), announced in an email broadcast to staff at 9:25AM that different functions in the technology division are being streamlined, resulting in job redundancies.

Note that The Straits Time is published by SPH Media.

Speaking to the media, the company said the decision was made after careful consideration.

SPH Media also added that the company was “committed to supporting the affected employees and providing them with comprehensive severance packages that adhere to tripartite guidelines, career coaching, job placement assistance, as well as counselling support to help ease their transition”, The Straits Time stated.

Hiring was “urgent and aggressive”

SPH Media was formed in 2021 as a company limited by guarantee after the former Singapore Press Holdings was restructured and delisted.

According to the COO and CTO, SPH Media had to “urgently and aggressively” hire tech staff following this restructuring in December 2021. 

The Edge Singapore reported them saying, “This ramp-up was needed to catalyse and power the earlier phase of transformation. But we recognise that it is not a level that we can afford to sustain beyond 2024.”

Expenditure on technology currently makes up nearly 20% of SPH’s annual costs. Payroll-related expenditure accounted for nearly two-thirds of this.

Like other media companies globally, SPH Media has had to grapple with persistent decline in revenue and the growing cost of keeping up with fast-changing audience demands in digital media.

Given the situation, the company first attempted to tighten non-payroll expenditures. While these efforts helped to bring down the overall expenditure partially, adjustments to manpower could not be avoided.

As such, job redundancies were considered as a last resort. 

The Edge Singapore reported that they had previously contacted SPH Media on October 28 for comment about the rumoured layoffs. At the time, SPH Media responded that there has been “no such exercise” since the start of 2024.

Now announcing the layoff, the COO and CTO described the layoff as a difficult decision, but shared that the cuts together with the restructuring will bring the technology division to a more sustainable steady-state.

SPH Media’s email also states that there are currently no plans for “further exercises of this nature”, though “regular review and resource optimisation” would continue to be necessary.

“Going forward, our focus will be to steady the ship as we transit towards a more sustainable level of tech operations and expenditure,” it added. 

Featured Image Credit: SPH Media