June 13, 2012

Does Tuesday’s massive layoff of 600 in a single day at four Advance Publications newspapers in New Orleans and Alabama earn a place in newspaper-layoff history?

Sadly, no.

News organizations have announced other job reductions of even larger or similar size in recent years. Here’s a reminder of some of the biggest:

Even these painful layoffs look puny in comparison to some of the all-time biggest corporate layoffs:

  • IBM dropped 60,000 workers in July 1993, just six months after Sears/K-Mart had let go of 50,000.
  • More recently, during or following the 2008 recession, there were cuts of 50,000 at Citigroup, 47,000 at GM, 30,000 at Bank of America and 24,600 at Hewlett-Packard.

Related: How the Times-Picayune & Alabama papers covered job losses on their front pages (Poynter) | What great bosses know about how to manage downsizing’s aftermath (Poynter)

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Jeff Sonderman (jsonderman@poynter.org) is the Digital Media Fellow at The Poynter Institute. He focuses on innovations and strategies for mobile platforms and social media in…
Jeff Sonderman

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