Vice has announced plans to sack 250 staff, as a wave of job cuts affecting the digital media industry continues to hit companies around the world amid questions over the sustainability of ad-supported online publishing.

Almost every major online news start-up that emerged out of the Facebook-fuelled online publishing boom of the mid-2010s has announced substantial redundancies in the last month, with hundreds of staff sacked at HuffPost, BuzzFeed, and now Vice.

The sites, which boomed thanks to investors hoping they were betting on the future of the media, are having to make substantial cutbacks in a drive for profitability as financial backers grow tired of subsidising losses after investing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Many of the companies have struggled to make news pay and are focusing on other forms of revenue, such as making television shows, selling goods, or producing branded content for companies. Others are erecting paywalls or asking for contributions from readers in a bid to stay afloat and continue to subsidise their loss-making news businesses.

Vice expanded rapidly under former chief executive Shane Smith, who once bragged about spending $380,000 on a Las Vegas dinner for the company’s board of directors. Under his leadership, the company branched out from its traditional website into branded verticals and TV productions, such as the US nightly news show it produces for HBO.

Shane Smith, the co-founder of Vice. Photograph: Tim Knox

But the company’s growth has stalled, with Disney writing down the value of its investment in the company by 40% and Smith stepping back after a troubled period in which the company was hit by allegations of sexual misconduct by company executives.

Vice’s new boss, Nancy Dubuc, had already indicated her intention to cut a tenth of the company’s 2,500-strong global workforce over the coming year but had previously suggested this could be achieved through a hiring freeze. However, on Friday the company announced it would make compulsory redundancies affecting every department.

“This shift centralises many roles and eliminates overlap,” said Dubuc in an email to staff. “It touches everyone at Vice – from finance to TV and editorial to IT – all departments at every level will see some impact. While this makes us a stronger business going forward, it is difficult for all of us to go through and we do not make these decisions lightly. We need to operate more nimbly, focusing our energies and investments on core strengths – on our terms, in our own way.”

Sources in Vice’s UK office suggested the main website’s editorial team would escape job losses, although many other staff at the company’s office in Shoreditch in east London are facing redundancy.

In common with many media businesses that began life as online start-ups, Vice also faces a challenge to remain relevant to its 18-35 target demographic when the company and many of its staff are at the older end of the youth spectrum.

Vice used the announcement to emphasise it is not a digital-only business and has substantial TV production and advertising agency businesses – a sign that being a traditional media business with regular revenue could now be more attractive to investors than an online start-up.

The British online women’s magazine The Pool collapsed into administration on Friday, while once-successful US publishers such as Mic collapsed at the end of last year, citing changes to Facebook’s algorithm that hit their business model.

On Thursday, Facebook announced it had made record profits of $6.8bn in the last three months.