Monday, September 27, 2010

Hubs | Reader: Job application notice 'infuriating'

A reader observes that Gannett has begun taking applications on this website for the News Design Center pagination hubs, which eventually will design and build pages for virtually all of Gannett's community newspapers.

"I thought this was interesting (and infuriating),'' they told me in an e-mail, "because we had been told all along that we would get more information in September (the month is almost over and still no more information) and also that we would be able to start applying for jobs at the design centers as soon as they were taking applications. Clearly, they are taking applications -- who knows for how long -- and we're still completely in the dark here."

26 comments:

  1. Gannett's looking for labor to fit its operational formula: cheap, cheaper, cheapest.

    If you're already making a good buck from the company, don't depend too heavily on landing in a "design center" of excellence.

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  2. Do bait and switch laws apply here?

    We retain top talent and grow future leaders of the company — and execute diversity strategies that ensure Gannett’s workforce reflects its communities.

    What a hunk of shit. Shame shame

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  3. Nothing ageist about that ad, huh?

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  4. Welcome to the club. We are in the dark about the layoffs at USA Today as well. They announced they are coming, and they disclosed publicly the size. But nothing happened. There seems to be a lot of second guessing going on. I thought they were waiting for Period 9 results, but those are in and the Q3 results should now be clear. Your guess is as good as anyones at what is happening.

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  5. It cost less to hire and insure people under 30 who don't have existing Gannett experience, especially those without kids, for these jobs. It's not difficult to google a job candidate these days and find out all sorts of personal information: do they have kids? are they married? how old are they? Why move existing employees to the centers when they can just show them the door and bring in people who have limited institution knowledge -- in this case a smart move from the corporate perspective. I'm just surprised that they are hiring Americans for these jobs when they could just setup a massive design center in China for a fraction of the cost to operate even one of the proposed centers. Perhaps they will understaff all of the centers and send most of the work oversees?

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  6. They're not taking applications, they're collecting resumes. And if any current Gannett designer wants to work in one of the design centers, there will be plenty of jobs available. Why? Because from experience, there won't be very many people from sites whose work moves to a different city who will want to relocate.

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  7. 12:05 Relocate? Have you looked at the real estate market? I can't afford to relocate because I would take a bath on selling the house. Houses that cost $800,000 in 1996 are now selling for $400,000. Then you have to pull the kids out of their schools and force them to leave their friends.

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  8. Could it be that another round of cuts are coming? Would someone 'in the know' please give a heads up on pending cuts.
    I guess it is important to know they aren't coming more than if they are. Having a Plan B ought to be Plan A.
    They could do much to calm nerves if they just gave an indication of whether individual properties are going to face serious belt adjustments, again. We might even have some good ideas, if they asked.

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  9. Yeah 12:05 a.m., you got it right. Who wants to go through the hassle and expense to relocate (assuming Gannett isn't paying anything!) to a job likely to disappear in a few years.

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  10. What struck me about the site were the images, most of them being websites. Says a lot about the future.

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  11. Welcome to the club, Editorial.
    Production hubs were announced almost a year ago. We were told we would be able to apply for open graphic design jobs in Indianapolis and Des Moines. That has not happened. Deceptive, very cruel and disheartening (not surprising though) that our company would do this in this manner. We have had not one drop of credible information concerning the graphic design production hub changeover.

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  12. Job descriptions are pretty sparse, no xx years of experience or other bonafides. Also if they are going after the cheap, cheaper, cheapest demographic no twitter or Facebook like button? Geesh how are the kids going to find these fantastic opportunities. I just wonder how papers are going to get along before the transition, we are losing two people by the middle of next month at this site. Any other sites seeing a defection of their graphics and design folks?

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  13. 6:53 am:
    You bought a house for $800,000?

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  14. Hearst runs one of these hubs on a smaller scale in Connecticut with four newspapers being processed at one site in Bridgeport. It's a disaster. The papers are awful, poorly edited and have mistakes everywhere. Gannett's plan is the same, only on a larger scale.

    http://exposingnewspapers.blogspot.com/

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  15. Face it, they don't want you. They regard you as being part of the problem. It is like the furloughed workers who were told they could apply for vacancies when they occurred.

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  16. We didn't even receive an email about this at my site. First I heard they were hiring was on the blog - as with everything else. I can't go anyway. No way the house will sell - and just bought it a year ago anyway.

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  17. Most Gannett people aren't moving these days to take other jobs because there arent many to start with. Even before the big cuts came, there were fewer people moving to other Gannett sites because they prefered to go to other lines of work, whether staying in their own city or moving to a new job. Sign of declining confidence in Gannett.

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  18. They can get employees cheaper by hiring people who have never had employment with Gannett. There is a sentiment among managers that furloughed employees brought these economic problems onto Gannett, and so there is a bias against hiring any back. This is ridiculous, but you cannot fight the sentiment of managers who control hiring policies.

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  19. Drop a zero off that original house price and that's the actual sales price of my house. Of course, I'm just an graphic artist, not a page designer.

    We had people inquire about jobs at GPC. They would have gotten a substantial raise, but the cost of living in DM or Indy is ridiculous in comparison.

    I can't figure out how paying people more cash to do the same work is saving the company money. Reno and larger sites must have been paying their artists $38 an hour to balance out our site's $11 starting.

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  20. 7:34 -- I'm not in possession of any special knowledge, but more cuts are certainly on the way. All you have to do is analyze the company's past behavior and the current economic climate. Gannett demands profitability, regardless of what's happening in the world.

    The cuts may be different from site to site (some may even escape them), but if you're in an area that is underperforming on the advertising side, I'd be ready. I suspect papers in California, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and Michigan are particularly susceptible because of the way they've been crushed by the real estate bubble.

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  21. I know editors at the regional test hub in Louisville. They work hard and they want to do a good job for the papers in other cities, but the sheer volume of stories and pages on any given night means that it is impossible to catch a lot of errors in copy (and the faster one edits, the more likely it is that editor will make their own errors). As that hub expands and the others come online, editing and page production will look more and more like working at a sausage factory.

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  22. Having lived in Monmouth County, NJ (home of Asbury Park) and Monroe County, NY (Rochester), I get a kick reading the relocation tidbits. Try this on for sticker shock if, for example, you live in Rochester and want to relocate to Asbury and remain a designer...(2000 numbers from wiki) Median Family income $76,823 in Monmouth Co. and $55,900 in Monroe Co. The other income numbers are about the same. Monmouth Co. an expensive area to live in so I'm not sure many folks would want to relocate there. But then again it beats unemployment...or does it? You ARE still working for Gannett. Maybe Louisville would be a better choice.

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  23. While Gannett is consolidating, it might consider thinning the management ranks at the localities. It makes no sense to continue the same newsroom management when the numbers of workers and their responsibilities being "managed" continues to decline.

    Likewise, what's going on with the sale/lease of Westchester's own version of the crystal palace? Half the place is empty, which should be a continual reminder to employees of how expendable they are.

    Just too bad the expendable are those who actually produce a product instead of the bloated "management team."

    Wake up Board of Directors! Don't just listen to what Martore and Dubow tell you. Management continues to protect its own at the expense of the stock holder.

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  24. Hey 6:25 AM
    Where did you find the job listings for GPC?
    There is nothing on Gannett website that I can find.

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  25. I thought the new design centers would handle only design, not editing?

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  26. LAY ME OFF PRETTY PLEASE ! I AM READY!

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