USA Today plans a major HR restructuring. The purpose of this move is to shift focus from print to mobile devices based news delivery. NewYork Times reports:

The makeover outlined to staffers on Thursday will result in about 130 layoffs this fall, the publisher of USA Today, David L. Hunke said, which is about 9 percent of the paper’s 1,500 employees. Mr. Hunke did not specify which departments would be hardest hit.

The management shake-up affects both the newspaper’s business operations and newsroom.

The reason behind such a major shift can be partially blamed on the decline in print media-based advertising. The advertising industry has seen a major shift towards online and mobile based advertising as discussed by Kristen Nicole in a previous post, and this has driven a number of printed publications to consider more mobile distribution.

The iPad in particular has raised hopes around the print industry, with book publishers entering partnerships for mobile advertising and delivery.  TIME Magazine and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. are among the others to recently announce dedicated mobile pushes.