It looks as though the rise of the EBook is to claim 225 jobs in Rugby England. Penguin Random House today announced plans to make 255 employees redundant and transfer operations to another distribution site owned by the publisher in Frating, near Colchester, Essex.
The redundancies aren’t immediate however and the publishers have entered into a period of consultation which could take up to 4 months and any redundancies beginning in 2017 and ending with the complete closure of the centre in 2019.
Penguin Random House have blamed a changing market for the closure, stating that the rise in the popularity of the EBook and a decline in the sales of physical book volumes for the closure.
EBooks now account for 25% of all book sales and of course bypass the need for a distibution centre.
Is this an inevitable progression towards physical books becoming the opulent luxuries they once were, or merely a logistical reaction to changing marketplace and nothing for us book lovers to worry about?
Go n, go out an buy a book today; right now in fact. You’re not doing it for yourself, you’re doing it to protect people’s jobs and keep physical books in fashion.
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