Time Inc. jobs headed for permanent Malaysian vacation

Time Inc. insiders who are wondering when and wheꦍre the company will outsource their jobs had better make sure they have an atlas when HR calls.

Six workers at People, who were in charge of setting up the tablet and smartphone apps for mobile readers, were recently told that their jobs were being exported —ꦕ to Malaysia.

More sꦗpecifically, to a company called WoodWing in the town of Cyberjaya in Malaysia’s state of Selangor.

Insider♏s said the cutback is scheduled to take hold in early June, when the jobs — three permanent staff jobs and three long-term contract positions — will be eliminated on the home front.

Many see it as the endgame for the failed promise of 🔯the tablet, which only a few short years ago was viewed as the salvation of magazine publishing.

The worry among Time insiders, of course, is that People’s move is just the first in a wave of jobs that CEO Joe Rippꦜ will ship offshore.

Time Inc. last year imposed its “last best a﷽nd final” contract offe🏅r on 200 edit employees who are covered by the Newspaper Guild.

As p🔯art of that offer, the company said it reserved the right to ship at least 60 jobs overseas. The Guild is fighting Time over the terms before the National Labor Relations Board.

Me𒊎anwhilꦐe, WoodWing appears ready to scoop up more jobs.

The company did not return an email seeking comment, but on its website, John Fong, managing director of its digital services division, said, “O🌜ur experienced consulting and outsourcing teams unburden our customers from all tasks involved in the ‘tabletization’ of their publications.”

The WoodWing website adds: “In many cases, the establishment of internal resources is not an o♊ption, so outsourcing seems the way to g🎀o.”

A Time spokeswoman said꧙ the publishing company “do✨es not comment on personnel matters.”

While news of the latest People cu🍌tbacks was slowly circulating through the system, the parent company released its 2015 proxy report on Tuesday, which revealed the rich compensation packages of its upper-echelon execs.

Ripp s💟aw his base pay rise to $1,003,847, up modestly from a $1 million annualized salary a year earlier, while his annual bonus grew to $1.1 million, from $900,000.

The proxy listed his 2013 base salary as onlꦐy $303,846, but that was because it was a partial package since he only joined the company on Sept. 30 of that year.

His total com🔴pensation, however, actually took more than a 30 percent tumble last year to $5,789,314, down from $8,981,032, due to a reduction in stocks and opti🎐on awards, which came in at $2,359,320 in 2014, down 68 percent from the $7.4 million in stock and options a year earlier.

Norm Pearlstine, executive vice president and chief content officer, had a total package of $2,549,461 t🐻hat included a base salary of $903,458 in 2014, up slightly from $900,000 a year before. His bonus shrank to $270,000, from $1.4 million a year earlier, because in 2013 when he joined, he received a “make whole” bonus to account for the compensation he would have received from his old employer, Bloomberg ꦆLP, had he stayed put.

The proxy said Pearlstine received $128,077 in base pay from Time in 2013, but again that was because he only rejoined the company on Oct. 31, 2013. Hiওs annualized salary that year was $900,000.