Saturday 19 December 2009

US loses 40,000 newspaper jobs in 2009


Editor & Publisher journalist Joe Strupp has named continuing job losses in the US newspaper industry as the top business story of the year in the sector. The figures are scary.
Strupp writes: "More than 40,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2009, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is nearly twice the 21,000 cut in 2008 and more than any single year in the past 10 years. Even with furloughs, salary cuts and numerous retirement fund freezes, publishers lopped off a tragic number of positions, even as they sought to expand online and, of course, increase workloads for those who remain. The count at the end of 2009 is 284,220 jobs. In 1999, that number was at 424,500. If things don't slow down, any attempt to properly cover news, and write and edit it, will be lost if it hasn't been already."
Coming in as tenth on Strupp's Top Ten list is the closure of E&P. Strupp says:"Sadly, we are part of the list this year, with E&P shutting down after 125 years. At the moment, talks are continuing to possibly keep us going. But if they do not prove successful, this industry "bible" will cease to exist after more than a century of chronicling everything from newspaper sales to the Pulitzer Prizes. Here's hoping it has a happy ending."

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