• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, May 14, 2020

In a filing with New York State, ViacomCBS has reported laying off 450 staff since January.

The company has acknowledged that some layoffs have occurred, but has not publicly cited specifics, other than a warning notification with the state that was amended in February to indicate that a total of 117 employees across state sites would be affected by layoffs between April 15 and June 30.

The need for staff consolidation to streamline and reduce costs following the recent Viacom-CBS merger was a given even before the pandemic hit. In February, the company upped its cost-savings target from $500 million to $750 million over three years.

The 450 apparently permanent layoffs in this latest filing, made at the end of April, include 271 staff at Viacom International, 88 at Showtime, 41 at CBS Corp., 27 at CBS Television Studios, 16 at CBS Network, four at CBS Interactive and three at Simon & Schuster, as first reported by WWD.

A separate New York state filing reported 65 temporary, COVID-19-related, layoffs at Cast & Crew, a payroll company that CBS contracts with, WWD adds.