2,400 jobs lost in 2007

What is that 2400 in terms of percentage of total workforce in the industry?

 

4.4%

But that's not 4.4% laid off, as some vacancies simply were not filled.

It's a loss of 2,400 jobs, but not 2,400 lives thrown into upheaval. There is a big difference.

Our bean counters are hoping for 12 losses in our newsroom by attrition in 2008. We're already at 7. So I guess that's good.

 

How does that 4.4% compare to other industries? Not the raw numbers, but the percentage of the totals.

 

Citigroup's announcement of 9,000 job cuts is 6.5% of their US workforce. And that's in addition to the 4,200 job cuts they announced just a few weeks ago. What I don't know is whether the 180,000 employees abroad are part of those 13,200.

 

I think the industry will double 2,400 by the end of this year. At the rate we're going, it's bound to happen.

 

I don't doubt it.

In little over a year, our company went from having:

* A sports editor with four full time reporters, one part time guy and limitless stringers (Plus three office-wide photographers) at our six weeklies branch

and

*A sports editor with four full time reporters at our daily paper

to

* No sports editor, three full time reporters, one office-wide photographer and strict freelancer budgets at our six weeklies

and

*No sports editor, two reporters at our daily branch.

So, in conclusion, our office lost two SE's, three reporters, and two office-wide photogs in less than 18 months.

 

Will there be hirebacks on a large scale when newspapers become Net-only products, since you don't hafta buy paper and fund a production and distribution operation? That will happen, of course, only when papers figure out how to make enough money on the Net to fund the newsgathering and news-producing operation, and have the technological strength and legal will to attack the random leeching of their online product -- the lifeblood of most blogs.

And when papers do that, how will they do against Net-only sites that have established loyal audiences. We know younger folks don't read papers; will they read it online when the print alternative is gone?

 

Newspapers are firing people left and right and dumbing down the product like never before. The only way they will have online readers is if they have a product worth reading, a concept few in newspaper management seem to grasp.

 

Fixed.