Hearst Just Made Some Major (& Surprising) Layoffs

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Ever wonder why tweets have a 140-character limit? Because sometimes, the biggest news can be summed up in less than 15 words. Case in point: Amina Akhtar's confirmed layoff from Elle.com is the tweet heard 'round Manhattan today. Mashable reports that Hearst has laid off top editors in its digital division, including Akhtar, formerly the executive editor of Elle.com, and Abby Gardner, formerly digital director of Cosmpolitan. Though Gardner has not yet directly responded to the news in the Twitterverse (she has provided rather amusing tweets, instead), Akhtar has become very vocal about the surprising news, and has already updated her Twitter bio to reflect her "free agent" status.

embedPhoto: Courtesy of Twitter.
The news of Hearst's layoffs is surprising for two main reasons: First, NYFW is just over two weeks away. Second, that the layoffs are coming from the digital, rather than the print, sector. Of course, there may be additional layoffs in print that haven't made as big a splash on the Internet, but to see top-tier employees released from their digital duties has us all looking around, and in unison asking: What does this really mean?

While we're totally bummed for our colleagues, we're also really excited to see what's in store for them next. Whoever snaps them up next is going to be pretty lucky! (Mashable)

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