The Washington Post says it has plans to do away with more than 200 jobs as a cost cutting measure after prognostications for online readership and subscriptions proved “overly optimistic” heading into 2024.
In a note sent to staff on Tuesday and obtained by several media outlets, Patty Stonesifer, the
chief executive officer at the Post, wrote the company has an “urgent need to invest in our top growth priorities.”
A large pool of the Post’s hundreds of employees will be offered voluntary buyouts, Stonesifer said, with the number of acceptances capped at 240 positions.
The voluntary buyouts, Stonesifer said, are designed to “avert more difficult actions such as layoffs,” which she called “a situation we are united in trying to avoid.”
Stonesifer took over for Fred Ryan, the Post’s former publisher who left the company earlier this year.
The Post eliminated the jobs of nearly two dozen newsroom staffers this spring, saying at the time the move was “necessary for us to stay competitive, and the economic climate has guided our decision to act now.”
Last fall, the newspaper ended its Sunday print magazine.
The Post is one of several media and tech companies to conduct layoffs and hiring freezes in the face of a tough ad market, news fatigue and other economic hardships in recent months.