Publisher Carol Hudler, who also is chief of Gannett's South group of papers, disclosed the figures to employees yesterday, without identifying individual victims. I'd been waiting until now for further confirmation before publishing any hard numbers.
On the high end, the 80 jobs would include 20 unoccupied positions -- resulting in 60 forced layoffs, readers say. What's more, those 80 would represent more than 13% of the News-Press' total workforce, based on the paper's official company page -- a higher percentage than forecast. That may mean Hudler had fewer well-paid workers to choose from, so was forced to target more, lower-paid employees.
Earlier: our new paper-by-paper list of late-2008 layoffs
How are you preparing for the 10% cut? Post replies in the comments section, below. E-mail gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
It could also mean she has more higher-paid employees, and that she had to cut even more than 13 percent of payroll. Under that scenario, papers such as Louisville, Des Moines and Rochester that are on more solid ground could be cutting a lower percentage of payroll compared to locations such as Florida that are sucking wind at a higher rate. Or not.
ReplyDeleteHow am I preparing? By being more of a tightwad than usual, but that won't really prepare me. I have only worked in the newspaper business my entire career. My fear is that I need to come up with a plan B as if I survive this reduction, who's to say I will survive any future cuts. I hate having this reduction hanging over my head and wish I had a crystal ball.
ReplyDeleteSeeing mention of Fort Myers reminds me: Where is Kate Marymont in all of this mess?
ReplyDeleteOnly a few months ago Kate was presiding over the newsroom at Fort Myers. Surely she hasn't already forgotten what it's like to dangle at the end of Corporate's chain.
Shouldn't community newspaper newsrooms be hearing from Kate, getting some guidance, if not hope and inspiration, from her? If she's offering any, it's not filtering through to the troops.
11:44 AM -- "...as Florida that are sucking wind at a higher rate.." I don't know about the other "Florida sites" but we made $14 Million NIBT this year so far.
ReplyDeleteThat's nice, 2:31, but what did you make last year? And what will you make in 2009?
ReplyDelete2:44 PM - Not the point, we're making money, not sucking wind as someone posted. Granted it's not the 40M that we made during 2004-5.
ReplyDeleteBut that's precisely the point. If the fundamentals of our business are dramatically shifting, why wait until we're losing money to change the size of the workforce. I want to keep my GCI job, but it's hard to fault management for pulling back as they head for the abyss. Disclaimer: I'm hourly, not mgmt.
ReplyDeleteAnd guess who's coming to Fort Myers for a visit early next week? Dubow and Dickey.
ReplyDeleteTo the good folks bashing Fort Myers, keep some things in mind: this was probably one of the two or three most-profitable papers in the chain through the real estate boom, and as corporate was sucking off tens of millions of dollars in profit, they were handing out 1 and 2 percent raises and leaving gas reimbursement at 28 cents a gallon (as gas in south florida sailed past $2, $3 and even $4 a gallon in response to numerous hurricanes.) Meanwhile, staff continued to toil in one of the most expensive markets in the country.
ReplyDeleteAnd if staff members somehow did manage to buy a house on a $30,000 or $40,000 income, as median prices sailed past $200,000 and then $300,000, they are now hopelessly upside down on the mortgage (to the tune of $100,000 is not in the least unusual) and facing the loss of their jobs.
In other words, they are near financial ruin in some cases even if they KEEP their jobs and this applies MOST to the lower end of the scale who have not been around long enough to stand much of a chance as the preliminary numbers seem to indicate that scores of upper management must not be bracing for much of a hit if it's going take in the neighborhood of a 15 percent workforce reduction to meet the numbers.
While I understand the need to cut the bottom line to be profitable, I don't understand the long-term logic behind that.
ReplyDeleteAt a company that makes widgets, when sales go down you can simply cut people and make fewer widgets. It does not affect quality of the remaining widgets being products
At a newspaper, cutting jobs means fewer people to report the news and write articles. Thus, those cuts decrease the value of the product for the remaining consumers. Those cuts seem to be a cycle that you won't be able to break out of.
Amen, 5:14.
ReplyDelete5:14 - Our product is our talent. It's that simple. People won't read what isn't written well, or isn't something they already know, or is fluff. "Advertorial" is the bane of media, but that is all Gannett is going to be getting with these cuts. REAL journalists will be gone, replaced by kids and ad reps writting "good news stories" about car dealers and realtors. Readers won't put up with the crap long. They will cancel. Hell, they already are in droves anyway. Gannett is just pushing their properties off a cliff.
ReplyDeleteAnd guess who's coming to Brevard on Monday? Yeah, you guessed it Dubow and Dickey.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
Are Dickey and Dubow going to look over the new Naples Daily News printing plant, and perhaps come to a deal with Scripps to print Fort Myers? The new press being put there is supposed to be really state of art.
ReplyDeleteThat's incredible. Of course, in the mid 90s, while I was working in Brevard, Ft. Myers was the class of the south. The highest margins, the best people and the standard for USA TODAY. Has that print site already been shut down? I guess Ft. Myers could be printed in another city.
ReplyDelete8:07 p.m. --
ReplyDelete"State of the art," huh?
That's what we were told in Louisville when we got our new presses a few years ago. They've been a constant headache. If they're "state of the art," that doesn't say much for the state of the art.
8:07 p.m. --
ReplyDelete"State of the art," huh?
That's what we were told in Louisville when we got our new presses a few years ago. They've been a constant headache. If they're "state of the art," that doesn't say much for the state of the art.
"State of the art" today means ability to run presses with fewer operators, thus saving employee costs.
ReplyDelete