Hundreds Of Patch Employees Laid Off

BOSTON (CBS) --- Hundreds of Patch employees are without jobs after sweeping layoffs were announced Wednesday afternoon.

The announcement came just two weeks after AOL sold their stake in Patch to investment company Hale Global.

According to the New York Times, Hale said at the time that its intention was to keep operating all of Patch's 900 sites.

Dozens of Massachusetts Patch's local news, associate and regional editors announced via Facebook they were cut from the company due to a "company restructuring." Among them, editors in Peabody, Beverly, the Andovers, Westford and Chelmsford. Most New Hampshire site editors were also laid off.

Media blogger Jim Romenesko posted a recording of the call on which employees were fired.

Some sites' Facebook pages did say the site would continue to operate but it was unclear who would be monitoring it.

No plan for the sites has been made public.

Wednesday's layoffs weren't the first for the company. Last year, hundreds of employees were laid off in efforts to make the company profitable.

Established in 2007, AOL bought the company in 2009, expanding quickly to at one point, more than 2,000 sites.

AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong faced constant criticism to dump the company amid huge losses and a failure by the sites to turn a profit.

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