THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Another round of layoffs hit the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, as cuts were made all across the business side of the organization.
Interim CEO Paul Beeston, just back in the office after a vacation, said the total number of cuts was less than two dozen although he would not divulge a specific figure.
"The number was significant," Beeston said from his office. "It’s not a pleasant thing to do but we felt it was necessary to ensure the long-term health of the organization."
The entire baseball operations department was untouched by this latest purge, which comes some 10 months after about 40 people lost their jobs last December.
Those layoffs, which focused on sales and customer service staff, were related to the sudden shift of the global economy and concerns of a looming recession. The moves made Wednesday come as a result of the team’s dramatic drop in attendance from 2008.
The Blue Jays attracted a total of 1,876,129 fans over their 81 home games, well off last year’s count of 2,400,416.
Beeston said that if the team had maintained its hot start to the season and drawn better through the summer, the cuts might have been avoided. That didn’t happen, and he believes the organization is now lean enough to avoid any future dismissals.
"I would suspect that, I would hope that, and I would anticipate that," Beeston said.
The axe, however, is still hanging over baseball ops and may drop once the Blue Jays season wraps up Sunday in Baltimore, as general manager J.P. Ricciardi’s future is far from secure.
Beeston once again repeated that he won’t comment on Ricciardi’s future until next week.
.A persistent rumour in the scouting community is that Chicago Cubs scouting director Tim Wilken, a former Blue Jays scout and vice-president, may get the job.
Beeston is also expected to replace himself with a permanent president and CEO in the coming weeks, although he declined to comment on the status of his lengthy search.
.The cuts at the Blue Jays continue a wave of streamlining at other divisions of team owner Rogers Communications Inc., in recent months, as the company copes with a drop in advertising at its media properties and more competition at its cellphone business.
Earlier this week, Rogers (TSX:RCI.B) cut 10 positions in its publishing division. The Rogers publishing division publishes a variety of Canadian magazines including Maclean’s, Chatelaine and Canadian Business.
The parent company employs more than 29,000 people and is Canada’s largest cable TV services provider and mobile phone company..
