Corus Entertainment has laid off several staff from Global News at it conducts a review of expenses and operations to manage its business through economic uncertainty.

The company did not confirm exactly how many staff were impacted by the layoffs or what divisions they came from, beyond the fact that there had been “a small number of exits” in various functions.

“As part of managing the post-pandemic climate and unexpected economic uncertainty, we are conducting an enterprise-wide cost review, looking at all expenses and operations,” a Corus spokesperson said in a statement. “Where possible, we seek to have minimal impact to our people through this review. However, some of these decisions will affect our people, which is never easy.”

A statement from Unifor, the union representing over 800 media workers at Corus across Canada, said online journalists and video journalists at Global News had been impacted, while also describing the sports department in Edmonton as having been “decimated.” In total, Unifor’s director of media Randy Kitt told MiC that 10 of its members were impacted by layoffs, adding that those numbers do not reflect non-union members or management that were also impacted by restructuring and attrition.

“It is becoming impossibly difficult for media workers to face the news of restructuring and layoffs on a regular basis,” said Lana Payne, Unifor’s national president. “Journalists are the backbone of our democracy. We need to save local news by investing in newsrooms – not cutting them. We will continue to support our members during this devastating time.”

Several now-former Global News journalists confirmed on social media that they were among the layoffs. They include national online journalists Irelyne Lavery and Heidi Lee, health reporter Teresa Wright and politics reporter Rachel Gilmore. Gilmore was recently the recipient of the Tara Singh Hayer Memorial Award, given by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression to those who have made contributions to press freedom.

In its most recent financial quarter, revenue at Corus was down by 7% year-over-year, primarily driven by an 8% dip in revenues from its TV division amid lagging demand from advertisers. However, the company was optimistic about the year ahead for TV thanks to its investment in emerging platforms, which includes streaming products for Global and Global News.