By Lucia Moses, Mediaweek

Acknowledging that the company is facing unprecedented economic hard times, Time Inc. chairman, CEO Ann Moore announced a massive reorganization that’s expected to lead to the loss of hundreds more positions in the coming weeks.

One of those already departing is Time magazine’s worldwide publisher and 35-year Time Inc. veteran Ed McCarrick, whose retirement the company announced Oct. 28.

McCarrick started at the company in 1973 as a sales rep and served over the years in various positions before becoming publisher of Time’s U.S. edition in 1999. He was named to his current position in 2003.

Under the reorganization, effective October 29, Time Inc.’s 24 magazines and related Web sites will be grouped into three business units based on similarity of audience and advertisers. Each will have its own general manager who will report to Time Inc. executive vice president and CFO Howard Averill.

“This is a challenge, unlike any we’ve seen before,” Moore stated in a memo to employees. “And after much careful study and consultation with many of you who run our businesses, I have concluded that it is no longer possible to operate our company with the same decentralized management structure that served us so well during our many years of sustained growth.

John Squires will run the news unit, which will consist of Time, Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated.

Moore herself will lead the style and entertainment group, comprising People, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly and Essence.

Sylvia Auton will lead the lifestyle unit, which will contain Real Simple and This Old House, among others.

Moore also announced the creation of a centralized ad sales and marketing group, with Stephanie George at its head, and a consolidated consumer marketing and sales group under Brian Wolfe.

Moore also said that under the new structure, titles would increasingly share correspondents and content, as exemplified by a recent Time magazine cover story by Fortune managing editor Andy Serwer and staffer Allan Sloan.

“In the new structure we will see much more of this kind of cooperation,” she stated in the memo.

News of the restructuring comes several days after 30 people, or 3 percent of the total, were laid off at Time's Southern Progress operations.

Like other publishing companies, Time Inc. has downsized in recent years in the face of declining ad revenue. The last big round of layoffs took place in January 2007 and involved close to 300 of the total workforce of about 10,500, although the company has continued to pare in smaller, less prominent ways since then. An additional 500 left the company last year when Time Inc. sold its enthusiast and parenting magazines to Bonnier Corp.

Since Moore was appointed to her current role in 2002, Time Inc. has gone through various organizational iterations of its magazines and Web properties. Back in 2005, she grouped the magazines into six units, then regrouped them five months later into two.