Newspapers Lost 105K Jobs Since 2001

layoff

The cost of progress can be painful. One reality: the number of layoffs endured by the newspaper industry over the last couple of years. The rise of the Internet began lowering the curtain on the golden age of print a decade ago, and 105,000 staffers have lost their jobs as a result.

Based on records kept by the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor and tallies by various industry watchers, total employment in the newspaper publishing business has declined from 414,000 in 2001 to 309,000 at the end of 2009, a 25.4% drop over the course of eight years.

To put that in perspective, the U.S. auto industry shed about 450,000 jobs over the same period, with total employment dropping from 1.3 million to 850,000, for a 33% decline. High-tech employment lost 700,000 jobs, slipping 11% from 6.6 million to 5.9 million. In short, the newspaper business is about where many would expect, in terms of percentage losses -- worse off than high-tech but a little bit better than the auto industry.

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Still, publishers have made an effort to preserve their newsroom headcounts, although some ax-swinging was clearly unavoidable. From 2001-2009, newspaper newsrooms lost a total 9,700 jobs, for a 17% decline from 56,400 to 46,700. The vast majority of cuts fell on business, administrative, production and circulation employees. (It's also worth noting that many senior newsroom staff with relatively high salaries were probably replaced with younger, lower-paid journalists at entry-level positions.)

More alarming is the rate of decline in both total employment and newsroom employment, which has accelerated markedly over the last decade.

After losing an average 3.5% per year from 2001-2006, in 2007-2009, the average rate of loss increased to 5% per year. After a period of relative stability, newsroom losses grew steeper toward the end of the period: Total employment declined by an average 1% per year from 2001-2006, then accelerated to 5% from 2007-2009, including an 11% drop from 2008-2009.

Although it's hard to generalize about the meaning of these figures with certainty, they may indicate that, having held out against newsroom layoffs as long as possible, in 2009 newspaper publishers finally decided they had cut other business functions to the bone, and reluctantly began cutting costs in the newsroom.

If this is the case, and if 2010-2011 doesn't bring a big rebound in newspapers' fortunes, coming years may see the quality and quantity of journalism suffer noticeably.

1 comment about "Newspapers Lost 105K Jobs Since 2001".
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  1. Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., February 24, 2010 at 1:54 p.m.

    "Although it's hard to generalize about the meaning of these figures with certainty..." - No, it's not. It's very easy. Here's how it goes: the newspaper industry is a clear example of the epic fail of old-school media to understand and embrace the importance and evolution of new media and the impact it will have on communication to future generations. I know this because I was there - spin it any way you want, the above statement is true.

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