OUP Cuts 60 Positions
By Andrew Albanese -- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2009 2:25:00 PM
In what Oxford University Press officials called a “cost-cutting exercise,” the nation’s largest university press yesterday laid off 60 people between its two offices in New York and Cary, N.C. OUP president Tim Barton said the cuts were “a result of the difficult economic environment impacting the publishing industry.” OUP employs roughly 700 people in the U.S., and publishes approximately 500 new titles a year, approximately half of which are monographs. OUP spokesperson Christian Purdy said besides shedding jobs, the press was not planning any dramatic cuts to its publishing program or to any other strategic initiatives. Purdy said the cut was made in anticipation of a reduction in state and library budgets for next year.
