O'Reilly Lays Off 20
by Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 4/14/2003
Looking to cut costs, computer book publisher O'Reilly & Associates has laid off about 20 workers, some who work at the company's Sebastopol, Calif., headquarters and some who work at home.
Sara Winge, O'Reilly's public relations director, blamed the layoffs on the company's need to cut costs in a soft economy. "We've been impacted by the economy, like all publishers." Winge added that while the computer book market isn't as strong as it was three years ago, "we have been gaining market share over the last few months." O'Reilly, said Winge, has seven titles among Amazon.com's top 25 bestselling computer book titles.
O'Reilly publishes about 120 books a year aimed at computer professionals and technically savvy consumers. Winge pointed to O'Reilly's Hacker series and the Missing Manuals series, copublished with author David Pogue and Pogue Press, which specializes in tech books for ordinary consumers. "These books continue to be very successful," Winge said.
The publisher still has about 112 employees remaining at its California headquarters and about another 50 who work at O'Reilly's Cambridge, Mass., office or at home. O'Reilly reported about $50 million in sales in 2001.
