The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has eliminated eight positions in a cost-cutting move brought on by a continued reduction in advertising revenue, the newspaper announced Tuesday.
Lynn Hamilton, president and general manager of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Inc., said five of the jobs were in the newsroom, two were production jobs and one was in the circulation department.
The job cuts are the newspaper's first since 2009, Hamilton said.
The eight employees who lost their jobs this week will receive severance pay based on their length of service. Their tenure ranged from less than a year to more than 30 years, Hamilton said.
"We had to do it because of the downturn in advertising that has affected newspapers across the nation in the fourth quarter" of last year, Hamilton said. No other cuts in 2017 are planned, he said.
"It's always a rough day, a sad day, when you have to do this," Hamilton said.
Nationwide, news media that rely on advertising have struggled since the recession of 2008-09. Newspapers have responded with layoffs, the closing of offices and news bureaus, farming out printing operations to other entities, and reducing circulation and distribution costs.
The Democrat-Gazette over the past three years has eliminated the equivalent of 65 full-time employees through attrition, Hamilton said.
"Our experiences in Little Rock the last several years certainly have been better than what newspapers in other cities have experienced," Hamilton said. "That's because we have a publisher who is dedicated to putting out a quality newspaper that covers local news, and we've tried to manage all these cuts in a way that will have the least impact on that quality."
Business on 01/11/2017