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Haymarket Asia lays off staff amid ‘extremely challenging’ business conditions

Haymarket AsiaHaymarket Asia has let a number of staff go in a restructure the publisher of Campaign Asia, CEI and Stuff says was needed to adjust to “extremely challenging” business conditions.

Staff in sales, marketing, circulation and administration are understood to be leaving the company in both the Hong Kong head office and Southeast Asia hub in Singapore.

The economic slowdown and China and Brexit were said to be “factors beyond our control” that had created uncertainty among clients, and made staff cuts “unavoidable”, the company’s MD Tim Waldron said in an email to staff.

Waldron said that he needed to put “a sustainable operating model in place that supports our business as it continues to evolve faster than we have seen before.”

“We must have the right structure and cost-base in place, to allow us to drive our business forward and to continue to invest in those areas where we know we can win,” he wrote.

The email to Haymarket Asia staff:

As many of you are aware, trading for the first 6 months of our financial year has been extremely challenging and we are forecasting well behind our expected financial position at this stage in the year. This downturn in trading, which is not unique to Haymarket Asia, has inevitably been impacted by a number of factors beyond our control. A slowing Chinese economy coupled with uncertainty generated by Brexit and the US Elections has affected the speed of decision-making amongst our clients.

Against the backdrop of this dip in our trading performance we have had to look hard at our cost-base. Having carried out a full review to identify all possible savings, in consultation with department heads, we are in the unavoidable position of having to reduce our headcount in certain areas.

All individuals affected by this decision have been spoken to and each of your department heads will brief you fully on what this means to your teams.

These decisions are not taken lightly however it is my job to ensure that we have a sustainable operating model in place that supports our business as it continues to evolve faster than we have seen before. We must have the right structure and cost-base in place, to allow us to drive our business forward and to continue to invest in those areas where we know we can win.

Please join me in thanking each of our departing colleagues for their contribution to our business and we wish them the best in the next step of their careers. They will be missed.

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