Wall Street Journal | AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File Layoffs hit the Wall Street Journal

Layoffs hit The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Details were scant, but sources said the cuts were happening in Journal bureaus in Europe and Asia. One source described them as "rippling across the globe."

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The Journal, like all newspapers, was hit hard by an acceleration in the decline of print advertising last year. Long immune to large-scale downsizing, it was forced to begin making serious cuts and consolidations. At the end of 2016, for instance, it folded some standalone print sections, including its New York metro section, where a couple dozen staffers had to reapply for their jobs and some were let go.

Spokespeople for the Journal and parent company Dow Jones, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., did not confirm the scope of the cuts but provided a statement referring to the Journal's previously announced "2020" review charting a strategy for the next three years: "This is ongoing work as part of the WSJ 2020 program announced last year. We remain committed to covering the region and will continue to do so robustly."

We'll update as we learn more.