{"id":96284,"date":"2025-07-11T15:18:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T15:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/afp-news-agency-to-reduce-headcount-foreign-network-costs\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T15:18:51","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T15:18:51","slug":"afp-news-agency-to-reduce-headcount-foreign-network-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/afp-news-agency-to-reduce-headcount-foreign-network-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"AFP news agency to reduce headcount, foreign network costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The chairman of Agence France-Presse (AFP)<\/em> outlined his plans on Friday to cut costs at the news agency with a retirement incentive scheme and a reduction in spending on expatriate journalists.<\/p>\n

Fabrice Fries warned last month that the group needed to save 12-14 million euros ($13.8-16.1m) by the end of 2026 due to a fall in revenues.<\/p>\n

Speaking to employee representatives on today, he said he hoped to save 4-5m euros a year with a retirement incentive plan in which 50-70 employees would leave and not be replaced.<\/p>\n

Costs linked to AFP<\/em>\u2019s foreign network of journalists would also be cut by around 3m euros a year, or around 10 per cent of the total, he said.<\/p>\n

This would be achieved by reducing the number of jobs with expatriate conditions, which typically include housing benefits and school fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAFP<\/em> is committed to expatriation,\u201d Fries said \u2014 but \u201cnot at any price\u201d.<\/p>\n

An experienced journalist working in Germany on expatriate conditions costs the same as four locally employed early-career reporters, he added.<\/p>\n

Funding the cost-saving measures would require \u201cexternal financing\u201d, he said. That could mean taking a loan from the French state, rescheduling existing debt payments or a bank loan.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/em>, one of the world\u2019s biggest news agencies with 2,600 staff worldwide, has been affected by an ongoing global downturn in the media industry as well as several short-term factors.<\/p>\n

Fears about a global recession have led many clients to enter \u201cwait-and-see mode\u201d and either delay investment decisions or reduce their budgets, Fries explained last month.<\/p>\n

Funding cuts from the United States government under President Donald Trump have also hit AFP<\/em> clients. Some of them, such as Voice of America<\/em>, have been forced to cancel their subscriptions.<\/p>\n

Social network giant Facebook has also terminated<\/a> its fact-checking programme in the US, for which AFP<\/em> was an important paid partner.<\/p>\n

After seven years of growth, AFP\u2019s<\/em> revenues are set to fall this year to around 8m euros less than forecast in the budget, according to management.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/em> is one of the world\u2019s three major general news agencies, alongside US-based Associated Press<\/em> and Canadian-owned Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It produces news stories, photos, videos and graphics for media companies around the world in six languages.<\/p>\n

Alongside its commercial income, the agency also receives funding from the French state, which amounted to 118.9m euros in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chairman of Agence France-Presse (AFP) outlined his plans on Friday to cut costs at the news agency with a retirement incentive scheme and a reduction in spending on expatriate journalists. Fabrice Fries warned last month that the group needed to save 12-14 million euros ($13.8-16.1m) by the end of 2026 due to a fall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2025\/07\/111859119b1538f.jpg?r=190150","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}