Commercial printer and mailer R.R. Donnelley & Sons said yesterday that it would cut 250 employees as a decline in advertising spending by marketers led it to reduce profit projections.
The company said that demand for its services in the second half of the year will be lower than expected. Realizing that the market slowdown was affecting its business, the company decided to speed up efforts to consolidate functions common to its various divisions, leading to the job cuts.
The cuts will result in an overall 5 percent reduction in the company's work force. The reductions are expected to save R.R. Donnelley $10 million in the second half of 2001.
R.R. Donnelley, Chicago, is projecting earnings of $1.60 to $1.75 per share for 2001. That estimate is down from a projection of $1.95 to $2.10 per share announced in April.
Earlier this year, the print production firm closed facilities in St. Petersburg, FL; Daytona, FL; and Houston.
In April, R.R. Donnelley announced that its first-quarter net profits dropped to $14.5 million, down from $46.7 million during the same period in 2000. That decline was blamed in part on an industrywide drop in advertising spending.
