Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Cuts Jobs

NEW YORK — More bad news from the book industry: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it is "streamlining" its educational business, and eliminating jobs in both its education and general divisions. HarperCollins and Pearson, parent company of Penguin Group (USA), are freezing wages and considering layoffs.

"This is the most challenging economic environment that any of us has ever experienced," Penguin Group chairman John Makinson wrote in a company memo that circulated Thursday, in which he announced that raises worldwide would be held off for Pearson employees making $50,000 or more and said he could not promise there would be no job losses in 2009.

"In this financial climate that would be plain foolhardy," he said.

This week alone, Random House Inc. announced a massive consolidation that will likely result in layoffs, Simon & Schuster cut 35 jobs and Thomas Nelson Publishers fired 54 workers. A top executive at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Becky Saletan, quit in apparent protest of a hold-down on acquiring new books.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, one of the world's leading education publishers and home to such authors as Philip Roth and Jonathan Safran Foer, announced Thursday that it would combine "various of its businesses into a new K-12 organization comprised of School Publishers, Holt McDougal" and others.

"The streamlining of the business will result in the elimination of some positions, even as new roles are created that will let the company serve educators and students in new and unique ways," according to Thursday's statement.

"These actions are consistent with those occurring within other companies across a full spectrum of businesses, and include the reduction of some positions in the company's Trade and Reference and Riverside Publishing divisions."

Houghton did not immediately say how many jobs were affected, or which employees would be be involved.

"The company is proceeding carefully and thoughtfully to assure that it is making the best, most productive use of its resources," the publisher said in a statement. "Overall, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt anticipates that the changes being announced will better position the company to realize its long-term strategic objectives while taking into account the current economic environment."

Caught in a credit vise related to the 2007 merger of Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt, the publisher has denied rumors that it's up for sale, but has not ruled out potential offers.

At HarperCollins, whose authors include Oprah Winfrey, Wally Lamb and David Wroblewski, spokeswoman Erin Crum said that pay raises had been delayed until next July and that "no decisions had been made" on job cuts.

"We're doing everything we can to manage in this tough environment," she said.

Comments

[JessBuice]

08:24 AM on 12/05/2008

In the future all educational textbooks will be available from the internet. This will reduce cost and help save millions of limited resources spent producing materials that become dated, only to be reproduced. This old school publishing cycle has had a negative impact in the classroom, where teachers rely on "turn the page" textbooks to meet their lesson plans.

In todays classroom a laptop and a projector can access materials from a wide variety of websites. The teacher can customize a curriculum that meets the needs of their students. From an elementary music teacher's perspective, with an emphasis on music literacy, my students needs are not the same as those in Alabama, New York, Hawaii, etc. Having a vast assortment of materials, and choosing those that meet the needs of my students is much more productive than turning the page in the textbook and singing along with the stereo.

99% of the public schools are now accessing the internet from each classroom. It was only a matter of time before the exceptional teachers found the materials they needed were not in the textbooks. The publishers new paradigm will be pooling these resources into one central web portal. New information, new methods of instruction, new assessment tools, and, individual state curriculum requirements, will require more updates than the traditional three, five, and seven year cycles. In the end the greatest benefits will be less impact on our environment, better resources for our teachers, and stronger minds to guide our future.

[Big0725]

05:59 PM on 12/06/2008

I couldn't agree with you more. The printed page isdead as the horse buggy and high-buttoned shoes. Imagine when a school districts don't have to buy thousands of textbooks, just to see them become obsolete by the end of the year.

Electronic media is the only way to go.

[BethinIllinois]

09:19 PM on 12/07/2008

Where do you get your facts? Just because 99 percent of public schools are accessing the Internet, does not mean that the Internet -- which, let's face it -- has TONS of inaccurate information -- does not mean that this is a good thing. The Internet has much valuable information, but it cannot and should not replace traditional textbooks.

Certainly, you need a grammar book to know it should be "today's classroom," not "todays classroom."

Or in your world, does punctuation not matter?