Gannett to axe between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs

Posted by Liz Webber on July 1, 2009 at 5:30 PM

The American newspaper publisher Gannett plans to get rid of somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 positions, according to an article in today's Wall Street Journal. The job cuts will hit the company's 80 local dailies, rather than USA Today.

Former Gannett editor and reporter Jim Hopkins had previously predicted up to 4,500 slashed jobs on his Gannett Blog. He now says there will likely be 600 actual layoffs as a result of the restructuring, naming July 8 as the axe date.

More precise details as to which of Gannett's 41,500 employees will be affected will be made known in the next few days, reports the Journal. According to Hopkins, it will be up to individual newspapers to decide how many newsroom positions will be eliminated.

Last year, the company cut 4,600 jobs or 10 percent of its workers. Many others were obliged to take unpaid furloughs.

Gannett's first quarter results were far from stellar, as net income dropped 60 percent and print ad revenue fell 34 percent. The company currently carries $3.7 billion in debt.

The jobs cuts are the latest bad news to emerge from the embattled company. The Gannett-owned Tuscon Citizen shuttered in May. Four New Jersey papers consolidated their copyediting duties the previous month leading to 16 jobs lost, a drop in the bucket when considering Gannett's most recent plans.

In January, USA Today stopped printing its international edition. Circulation at the flagship paper decreased by more than 170,000 in the six months ending in March of this year, largely due to cutbacks at hotels.

Of course, Gannett is not alone in slashing its workforce to combat troubled economic times. The Tribune-owned Baltimore Sun axed a third of its workers in April, while McClatchy announced plans to cut 15 percent of its workforce, a total of 1,600 positions.

Regardless of how many actually lose their jobs, it's a significant blow for Gannett's employees. Hopkins' blog will once again crowdsource the layoffs as it did for a previous round of cuts, although the site is scheduled to shut down July 10. While so far no cuts have been confirmed, the comments give vent to many employee frustrations with the current state of affairs. A recurring complaint is the fact that several news sources have reported the layoffs but as yet Gannett has not sent out any internal communications. If the company hopes to make the cuts the least traumatic as possible for employees, it will have to do a better job of talking to those that remain.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Gannett Blog