As print media struggles continue, juggernaut Time Inc. set to lay off six percent of workforce

Time Inc., the publishing division of Time Warner that’s responsible for magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated, and People, has struggled alongside the majority of print media to adapt to the growth of the internet, and it is now beginning work on cutting down its 8,000-strong staff. An internal memo obtained by AllThingsD and Bloomberg reveals that six percent of the division’s workforce, or about 500 employees, are being laid off. The layoffs come in the face of continued disappointing earnings: Time Inc.‘s sales decreased 6.2 percent during a nine-month period in 2012 compared with 2011. The losses face a truly massive media icon: the division says that more than one in two Americans read from at least one of its 21 magazines in the US every month. The size of Time Inc. clearly hasn’t immunized it against eroding advertising dollars and newsstand sales, however, and CEO Laura Lang says in the internal memo that the layoffs are necessary to “transform our company into one that is leaner, more nimble and more innately multi-platform.”

Update (2/13/2013): It looks like the planned layoffs might not be the only turmoil at Time Inc. — Fortune reports that a “serious” buyer is in talks with Time Warner to buy most of Time Inc. from the media giant. The current rumor says that Time Warner would retain control of at least three publications: Time, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune.