It now looks like Gannett's flagship may have eliminated about 50 circulation jobs today, in a consolidation of accounting work that a Gannett Blog reader says was one of GCI's best-kept secrets in years: "It was well disguised and caught everyone off guard."Earlier today, I had only broad estimates on the number of jobs lost -- from 16 to 60 -- on what I understand is being called "Black Thursday." The new jobs figure comes from an individual with access to more precise information.
The reader says a skeleton staff of perhaps three people will remain at the 17 affected circulation centers. Under the plan launched today, financial functions will be consolidated at six regional business offices. "But given the fact that they now have no access or a limited access to the accounting system,'' the reader says, "I find it hard to believe they will have jobs once the [new] business centers are fully staffed and operational."
The new offices will employ a single well-paid controller vs. 17 under the system being phased out. That reflects the cost-cutting drive in CEO Craig Dubow's strategic plan: Fewer publishers, ad directors and other pricey operating-committee level managers will be responsible for more businesses within the company's portfolio.
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You didn't mention that Gannett has also been combining IT and Production Directors at a number of smaller papers (Pensacola, Fort Collins), and also having one IT director handle several regional papers (in New York).
ReplyDeleteThis goes against the trend of splitting IT and Production, which happened at a lot of papers in the 90s.
Actually, Production and IT has been converging since the mid 90's in many papers. It doesn't make sense to have two different executives managing IT infrastructure.
ReplyDelete