Pearson confirmed it had begun a consultation process to look at its content aggregation business, but said it was too early to say how many jobs might be lost.
Pearson operated the World Reporter business with Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones and the Dialog Corporation. The venture, set up in 1996, resold to other businesses about 100,000 news articles each week from some 600 publications.
It was reported elsewhere that Financial Times publisher Pearson planned to make as many as 65 employees redundant. All the staff at the Pearson side of the joint venture work at Pearson's FT Business Information Services unit and World Reporter was the unit's biggest contract.
According to a spokeswoman for Pearson: "We have started a consultation period at our index and content aggregation business. We are looking at reshaping our end of the business and making it suitable for what is a changing marketplace. There may be job losses but we can not put a figure on that, as we have just started a consultation process."
Late last year, Pearson announced it was to cut staff numbers at the Financial Times by 14%, aiming to trim numbers from 1,050 to 900 and affecting marketing, management and journalists alike.
The news comes after Pearson issued a nine-month trading statement that revealed it expects profits from the FT Group to be down 40% on last year.
Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, said at the time: "We are now expecting profits to be significantly below our original plans for the year, almost entirely because of the weakness in advertising markets and, to a lesser extent, the technology recession."
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