Thread regarding Thomson Reuters layoffs

Maybe the 5 offices announcement is just for tech operations. I was in one of those non-tech meeting rooms at the Hyatt in Rochester when they dropped the bomb about shutting down Rochester. Nothing was mentioned in my meeting room about reducing the entirety of TR's business operations worldwide down to 5 locations. That has NOT been announced and it seems impossible to pull off.

I am a Rochester employee who was in today's meeting - and I agree that the jig was up when I saw the boxes of tissues ever-so-thoughtfully provided by management. Hundreds of people in the Rochester office will lose their jobs - I can confirm the 90 day notice plus severance. Formal notices will probably go out in January. I've been here 13 years and thought I could stay until retirement -- guess not!

CTO Bruce Gorter was at meeting in Rochester today. He said Rochester was the first office to be notified of a complete closure and said he was precluded from giving a list of closures. But he did say that ONLY offices LARGER than Rochester (500 employees) would remain open and he listed those (above). ALL other locations involved with TECH were being notified one by one this week of imminent closure. An all-hands meeting on Monday will announce any closures not already discussed over the course of this week. He noted most people do not yet know their offices are closing.

In short, if you work in an office with fewer than 500 people, are involved in any aspect of tech operations, and are not working in one of the five cities mentioned previously, your office is being notified between today and Friday it is closing permanently. There are NO exceptions. So, for example, if Hoboken is involved in tech, it is closing. About 1-5% of workers will be offered telecommuting positions temporarily. All others are going.

They have professionally printed their separation packages with nice folders... in the THOUSANDS. There were prior layoffs, mostly involving middle management, scheduled before this series and those are continuing as normal. This current round is to deal with permanent office closures.

This “only 5 cities will be left standing” idea seems to be wrong for now. Hoboken had some layoffs today in Operations, around 5-10%. If they were laying off everyone, they would have gotten us all into a big room and told us.

Are they closing Hoboken?

love to be in one of those five "strategic locations" hearing all this second hand. so mood much elevator

Wonderful let’s blame China for everything

What kind of bonehead thinks its okay to announce location closures in advance of notifying the location?! Couldn't they just have said, 'Sorry Rochester, we're closing your location as part of a restructure'. No need to let the cat out of the bag about everywhere else.

I work for TR now, been here for over 12 years. Lots has been happening and most are being left in the dark. Restructuring, stream line and smaller and global TR is on the rise (their words the past few weeks). Lots of jobs are being cut. Just not sure who, what, where and when - but it's happening (this has been going on for a few years now- TR has been outsourcing a lot of work to China - it was only a matter of time)

Remember, Reuters News is not a part of this "transformation" and layoffs.

These job cuts are mostly covering information products and services targeted to the professional/legal community, including programmers/developers, etc.

Thomson Reuters is closing its Rochester office, News10NBC has confirmed.

A company spokesperson was unable to say when the office will officially close, and how many jobs will be impacted by the closure.

The company issued the following statement:

"Thomson Reuters routinely looks at ways to run our global business operations more efficiently. This disciplined approach sometimes includes reviews of our real estate portfolio to best balance our internal resources with the needs of our customers in a highly competitive environment."

The office is located in the Aqueduct Building on East Broad Street.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

This makes no sense. They just hired a CEO for Reuters based out of NY. The company is saying it will be closer to customers and I don’t see the lion’s share of large law or accounting firms in Ann Arbor, Carrollton, Eagan, Toronto or Bangalore. Will execs be telecommuting constantly to be with customers or how will it work? Where did this information come from?

I think this list is referencing content centers. I don't think they would close Manila content center either. They do a lot of the work.

I'd hazard that a number of the global hubs will remain and likely were not mentioned because who cares about Singapore if you live in Upstate New York, That said, I would expect the same rationale to be applied globally: keep the larger locations and shutter the rest. Looks like 50% of North American cities would be cut.

Americans tend to speak about issues only affecting America, so it may be safe to assume that other offices outside of the U.S. are likely not being discussed here. Bangalore works with a lot of American IT/programmers so its future was probably discussed in that context.

No offices remaining in europe at all? Seems weird

What about Asia?

We were told they are all closing, outside of the five locations mentioned here. This is based entirely on what we were told by company officials at the meeting this morning. It sounds like most of the other locations are smaller or leftover from earlier acquisitions. Those sites are the ones they want to close down. Other locations like Toronto are still growing. The idea is that management believes concentrating employees in a handful of locations will speed up delivery/efficiency and reduce costs at the new TR.

Does this mean Hoboken NJ is closing to?

So Times Square is closing, too? I wish they would start accepting voluntary layoffs, Im ready to go!

Will there be any locations beyond the 5 strategic ones? I'm asking because R has 59 locations listed on the hub, and I find it hard to believe that 54 of them are closing. Perhaps there will still be satellite locations of some form?

https://thehub.thomsonreuters.com/groups/real-estate-facility-management/pages/featured-locations

Confirmed from Rochester meeting.

Major transformation leaves just five strategic locations as they say goodbye to the old TR. New approach is to consolidate everyone into five locations and say goodbye to workers everywhere else. They told us it represents the biggest transformation in TR's history and it will be a major shakeup for the company.

Because this will result in thousands and thousands of layoffs nationwide, generous severance packages are being given. Most employees here are working for at least the next 90 days plus two weeks severance for every year of service. Some of us will be here until next spring before severance starts.

We knew it was bad when we saw all the boxes of tissue strategically placed around the rooms.

What? How will content be produced considering that most content producers are outside those locations?