While London-based Pearson Plc. has shrunk its local workforce dramatically since it acquired McMillan Publishers Ltd. in 1998, executives making a swing through Indiana to talk with educators this week said the firm’s future here is bright.
Pearson’s Indianapolis workforce has decreased from 850 to 180 full-time workers in the last 18 years, but Kate James, the publishing and educational services company’s chief corporate affairs and global marketing officer, told IBJ this week the firm is much more likely to grow here than shrink further.
“One of the areas of focus in Indianapolis is the online program management, and that’s at the heart of what the company is doing,” James said. “Our employee base here in Indianapolis is focused on what the company is all about.”
Online program management entails a raft of services for developing, designing, maintaining and improving online educational curriculums or single-course offerings, largely in the higher-ed market.
Two other areas of focus for the Indianapolis office—broader higher education initiatives and customized courses of study for companies—also are solid segments for the company, James said.
“We have a bright future here,” she said.
Pearson maintains an office at 96th and Meridian streets where the lion's share of its local employees are located, as well as a distribution center at 5550 W. 74th St.
Layoffs in recent years have included the closure of a massive distribution facility in Lebanon in 2014, in which 209 employees were terminated.
In January, Pearson announced it would cut 4,000 workers companywide—about 10 percent of its workforce. That restructuring is about 80 percent complete and will continue through the end of this year, James said.
But, she added, the most recent cuts haven’t had a major impact on Pearson’s Indianapolis operations, and company officials don’t expect many—if any—job losses here through the remainder of this year. Pearson officials did not respond to IBJ's requests for a specific number of local job losses since January.
Founded in 1844 and now one of the largest publishers in the world, Pearson has pushed progressively deeper into developing digital education offerings in the last two decades for K-12 and higher-ed schools. It has absorbed significant criticism in recent years as a provider of testing services. It has a two-year contract with the state of Indiana to aid in writing and administering the ISTEP test.
Pearson’s revenue has been in decline the last three years, dropping from $6.6 billion in 2013 to $5.8 billion in 2015. Sales for the first half of this year were down 7 percent. Company officials said much of that had to do with the restructuring and predict a rebound in the second half of the year.
http://www.ibj.com/articles/59827-despite-deep-job-cuts-pearson-pledges-growth-in-indianapolis