For months the leadership of SA's largest print media group, Independent Newspapers, has been warning staff that it needed to drastically cut costs to stay operational.
But it still came as a shock to employees when news broke on Wednesday that the company plans to cut "at least" 40% of its workforce.
Previous rounds of cost cutting had not resulted in the type of savings the group had hoped to see. "Courageous difficult decisions" now needed to be taken, said Independent Media's CEO Takudzwa Hove.