That is a surprise, given the company's attempts to knock down my estimate that as many as 3,000 newspaper jobs would be slashed in December alone. When I first posted that estimate, spokeswoman Tara Connell told news services that the final figure would be "significantly less.''
Today, however, Chief Financial Officer Gracia Martore told a teleconference of Wall Street analysts on the fourth-quarter earnings report: "I've confirmed that indeed it was about 4,000 FTEs across all of our segments,'' according to Seeking Alpha's transcript.
To be sure, Martore's figure may be for all of 2008; the transcript isn't clear. In any case, a year ago, global employment totaled 46,100.
Friday, January 30, 2009
6 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
An FTE could equal two part timers, or it could be the equivalent in payroll reductions, i.e. trade a high priced employee for a cheapie.
ReplyDeleteWatch how this stuff is worded, Wendell is a smart cookie and the layoff number the stock analysts get may not be the same as normal people hear - but describe the same situation and in truth, be equally valid.
My guess is the number is more like 8000. But the last comment is correct, part-timer, full-timer, temporary, all count the same.
ReplyDeleteYou also need to be careful about the modifier. Your post says you asked about "3,000 NEWSPAPER" jobs. The CFO said 4,000 jobs across all segments.
ReplyDelete(This is sort of like listening to the GOP and Dems talk about taxes. The Republicans tend to talk about income taxes but not payroll. The Dems include payroll.)
FTE actually means full-time equivalent; i.e. one employee/position working 40 hours per week. It does not measure wages as suggested above.
ReplyDeleteUsing Matore’s number of 4,000 FTE’s, and assuming the average hours per week worked by the pool of Gannett employees let go was conservatively 35, suggests that at least 4,5714 employees/positions were terminated and/or eliminated.
And, even that number pales to the total number of people who lost their jobs as a result of Gannett as Matore’s numbers do not reflect non-employees who were let go….the independent delivery contractors, route drivers, stringers, etc.
The real number will be found when the annual report is released in March.
ReplyDeleteThe real number will be in the annual report in March.
ReplyDelete