South African media and e-commerce group Naspers plans to lay off more than 500 employees and close a number of newspapers and magazines, including leading weekly tabloid the Sunday Sun, its print division Media24 said on Tuesday. Media24 is Africa’s largest publisher, printer, and distributor of magazines and books, and is also the continent’s largest newspaper publisher with around 3,000 employees across eight divisions. The company said it would shut down one other national paper, four community newspapers, and four national magazines while outsourcing the majority of its monthlies and halving the frequency. The layoffs and closures come in the wake of planned job cuts at public broadcaster the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and similar moves at other members of the country’s “big four” print publishers – Arena Holdings, Caxton and Independent News.
SOURCE: REUTERS AFRICA