Turns out publishing house Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who recently announced they will stop acquiring new titles, then laid off some high profile editors, was the proverbial canary in a coal mine. Macmillion US will freeze salaries of all employees who make more than $50,000. Gawker has the internal memo. And Chronicle Books laid off 5% [...]

Despite it’s “near-record audience of 26.4 million listeners a week,” National Public Radio is cutting 64 positions, New York Times reports. NPR’s Culver City, CA offices will be the hardest hit. Radio in general, is doing badly, with advertising revenue in steep decline. Last week it was reported that the American radio industry is on [...]

For print publications, it’s an increasingly swift descent into obsoleteness, as more newspaper and magazine companies teeter on the verge of bankruptcy, and suffer drastic cuts to their hard copy circulation. Folio broke the news today that Newsweek will cut it’s circulation by 1.6 million, and concentrate on strengthening their brand as a “‘thought leader,’ something [...]

Hong Kong, one of the world’s big financial centers, has been hit hard by the global financial crisis, with hundreds of workers in the banking industry laid off in the last few months. As high flying finance workers lose their jobs, the demand for luxury homes—which had reached record highs earlier this year—has crashed, Monstersandcritics.com reports, via South [...]

Rumors are afoot in the blogosphere that the Ogilvy, a WPP agency, will be making some serious layoffs right after the holidays! The ad consultant and journalist George Parker wrote on his expletive-happy blog AdScam/The Horror! that “200 – 250 staffers” may be let go in January: “Ogilvy hasn’t picked up any worthwhile pieces of new [...]

  Reuters  just announced that EZ-Lube  (with 82 vehicle oil change locations) filed for bankruptcy today and has put itself on the market.  The company blames the economic downtown, the higher prices of fuel (less people driving means less oil changes), and a barrage of negative publicity about the car repair business.  The company has approximately [...]

The Wall Street Journal today:  “A Yahoo Inc. shareholder has urged the board to reach a deal with Microsoft Corp., saying selling the search business to Microsoft could result in a deal valued at double Yahoo’s current stock price.” Yahoo’s Brickhouse, a sort of research facility—or “idea incubator”—that mimicked a start-up environment and fostered the creation of new products, [...]

Illinois’ Governor Rod R. Blagojevich was arrested yesterday under suspicion that he tried to sell to the highest bidder, Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat, which was vacated by President-Elect Obama last month. But wait! There is a pink slip connection. According to the New York Times this morning, Governor Blagojevich is accused of “putting pressure on [...]