Thomson Reuters Is Cutting 2500 Jobs While Bloomberg Is Hiring

Layoffs are about to hit Thomson-Reuters hard. The Financial Times reports that the company will cut 4% of its headcount — 2,500 people — this year.

The problem is in the data department (from FT):

Jim Smith, chief executive, said the group was "in year two of a two-year turnround" in its largest division, financial and risk, and was entering 2013 in a more confident mood.
Staffing in financial institutions was "hardly robust", he said, "but it does seem more stable than it seemed at this time last year."

After a disappointing 2010 launch of the Eikon financial data product with which it hoped to replace old Thomson Financial and Reuters terminals, recent upgrades had led to
improving retention rates and sales trends, Mr Smith said.

"When we started last year we were [adding] 200 [Eikon] customers a week. In December it was 2,000 a week.," he said, adding that Eikon desktops had risen by 33 per cent to 33,900 over the fourth quarter and were now over 40,000.

That success means that "legacy" porducts have to be retired.

Meanwhile, over at Bloomberg, things are looking bright. the company plans to hire 500 more after posting a revenue $7.9 billion, a 4.5% increase.