Layoffs and Downsizing

Suburban Journals: Two Print Editions Fold, 20 Layoffs, "Just Really Sad," Says Former Writer

The Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis, the local newspapers owned by the same company as the Post-Dispatch and published online at stltoday.com are undergoing a major transition that involves shuttering two print editions and laying off twenty employees. The official announcement from parent ... More >>

Yellow Pages LLC: Massive St. Louis Layoffs With Jobs Reportedly Outsourced to India

More than a hundred St. Louis employees that work for YP Holdings LLC, the company that operates the Yellow Pages, are losing their jobs this year in massive layoffs. Why? Some positions are reportedly being outsourced to India. "It's terrible," Mike Mehringer, president of the Communications Work ... More >>

Kansas City Star Reporters Told to Duke it Out for Their Jobs

Newspaper layoffs. Not to be pun-y, but old news. The Post-Dispatch has been through this dance so many times. It's awful when it happens, but no one is surprised anymore even when the most loved and respected reporters are shown the door. Well apparently, the leadership at the Kansas City Star dec ... More >>

French Firm, Veolia, Wins Consulting Contract with St. Louis Water Division

The St. Louis Water Division has inked a new, five-year consulting contract with a private utility service company called Veolia, and some department employees are less than thrilled with the news. The city has made no formal announcement and the contract is still in "negotiation" according to a ci ... More >>

UPDATE 5: More Layoffs at the Post-Dispatch; Don't Worry, Mary Junck and Her Bonuses Are Fine

[UPDATE 5: Latest news out of 900 North Tucker is that 23 people have been laid off at the Post-Dispatch today, 13 in the newsroom and 10 more in advertising. Absolutely brutal news for our daily paper, and for the St. Louis community today.][UPDATE 4: The current tally, according to social media dy ... More >>

Food Editor Judith Evans Among Post-Dispatch Layoffs

As Daily RFT reported this morning, the Post-Dispatch is currently in the process of laying off an unknown number of editorial employees. Among those already notified is Judith Evans, a 26-year veteran of the Post-Dispatch; for the last nineteen years, she was the paper's food editor. "I got a phon ... More >>

Post-Dispatch Layoffs Include Photographer Johnny Andrews, Creator of the LISTEN Series

It's a truly bad day for St. Louis journalism -- the Post-Dispatch has laid off 23 employees, including editors Judith Evans, Steve Parker, Daivd Sheets and Tim Bross, three reporters, a web editor and the editorial cartoonist. This comes one day after Mary Junck, CEO of the paper's owner Lee Enterp ... More >>

Sad Coda for Today's Post-Dispatch News

As you may have heard, the Post-Dispatch laid off 23 employees today. The company announced the development eventually, in this unbylined story. Is it unbylined because no one wanted to write it, or because there was no one left to write it, edit it and produce an image to accompany it? Lee Enterpri ... More >>

Working and Not Working: DW Gibson Talks About His Conversations With America's Unemployed

For many journalists, including DW Gibson, Studs Terkel's Working, originally published in 1974, remains a touchstone. Terkel took his tape recorder out into the streets of Chicago and interviewed some 200 people about what they did all day and how they felt about it, and then edited their responses ... More >>

Margot & the Nuclear So and So's

8:30 p.m. Friday, June 1. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.8:30 p.m. Friday, June 1. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street.

Post-Dispatch Lays Off Six People Today

[UPDATE: United Media Guild tweets the number is now at six. Four copy editors, one photographer and one manager laid off. Erica Smith emailed to correct that one copy editor was part-time, the other was a full-time employee. The following post has been slightly tweaked to reflect that.]Twitter swee ... More >>

More SIU-Carbondale Professors Threaten Strike

Illinois' budget woes have placed heavy constrictions on the state's higher education system, putting professors' contracts in jeopardy and portending layoffs. The situation is nearing the boiling point at Southern Illinois University's Carbondale campus, where yesterday a fourth faculty union vot ... More >>

Three Fired From Post-Dispatch Newsroom; Three Others Take Buyouts

Somehow this image of the Post-Dispatch seems to work the best for this post.​Lee Enterprises laid off two researchers and an editor from the Post-Dispatch newsroom today. The firings are the first time the newsroom has suffered layoffs since the Iowa-based Lee acquired the paper in 2005. Last mon ... More >>

Russ Carnahan Honored by St. Louis Firefighters

Carnahan (with Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr.) will soon be adding an axe to his tool shed.​We can officially say it now: Representative Russ Carnahan is getting the axe. What? Don't we have to wait for the 2012 elections for the fallout from redistricting -- when Missouri's shrinking population ... More >>

Laid-Off Firefighters Want to Pump Your Stomach with Booze

This man can douse your burning liver. ​First they were employed. Then they were told they'd be laid off. Then they learned their jobs would be saved ... but only after they lost them. Now they're unemployed. But not for long. Confused yet? So are we. This calls for a drink! This afternoon ... More >>

No Fatties for Texas, Except for Burgers and Hos

Wikimedia CommonsBreakfast of champions.​ Tacos and Fat Hos are getting Texas some attention. The 13th fattest state in the country was forced by a jury to reinstate their Miss San Antonio yesterday. Seventeen-year-old beauty queen Domonique Ramirez sued the Miss San Antonio pageant after a ... More >>

St. Louis Firefighters Get Hosed; City Eliminates 30 Positions in First Layoff in Years

Fighting fire with fire-ings, naturally.​St. Louis plans to fire 30 firefighters -- the most it can terminate without closing engine houses -- in anticipation of the fire department's pension fund increasing by $4.7 million next fiscal year.The layoffs are the first time in recent memory that the ... More >>

East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks Tries to Be Opposite of a Grinch

Keegan HamiltonEast St. Louis mayor Alvin Parks, Jr., at a town hall meeting earlier this year.​Whatever the opposite of a Grinch is, that's what East St. Louis mayor Alvin L. Parks, Jr., is trying to be. Upon hearing that his city was planning to lay off nineteen police officers, four public ... More >>

Express Scripts Workers Shout Their Way to Victory

Kase WickmanBensalem, Penn. workers and union supporters outside Express Scripts, Inc. headquarters August 30.​Last summer, dozens of workers from Express Scripts, Inc's Bensalem, Pennsylvania facility bused to the company's St. Louis headquarters to protest the threat of their branch's closure. T ... More >>

Hop on Over

City Tries to Balance Budget by Cutting Jobs

In an attempt to alleviate a $46 million shortfall in the city's budget, the Civil Service Commission yesterday decided to cut employee benefits, increase furlough days and, most drastically, lay off workers, including two dozen firefighters. Firefighters, needless to say, is not pleased with this ... More >>

Attention Out-of-Work Ad Agency Folks: This Event is For You

All together now: "When life give you lemons..."​St. Louis was once known as an advertising agency mecca. Not any more. And especially not since the start of the Great Recession. Dozens -- if not hundreds -- St. Louis advertising and marketing creatives have been laid off just in the past three ye ... More >>

AB-InBev Brewery Workers Choose Between Buyouts and Layoffs

Image viaWho's behind the latest brewery lay-offs?​Like a shopper deciding between Bud Light and Bud Select, local brewery workers are stuck with two underwhelming options from AB-InBev: retire early or get laid off.We missed this story when it first appeared in last Friday's St. Louis Business Jo ... More >>

Report: Suburban Journals Lays Off Seven, Others to Take One Week Furlough

Photo: Chad GarrisonActual Suburban Journal.​A website that tracks layoffs in the newspaper industry reports this week that seven employees were recently let go from the Suburban Journals. According to the site Paper Cuts, four editorial staffers and three advertising employees have been fired for ... More >>

Lee Enterprises Throws Down the Gauntlet. Will The P-D Union Concede?

Wikimedia Commons​The union that represents St. Louis Post-Dispatch employees has hired a pair of flacks who ran PR for the POTUS' '08 campaign in anticipation of a public fight with the paper's owner. Contract talks between the St. Louis Newspaper Guild and Lee Enterprises broke down last we ... More >>

AB-InBev to Employees: This Job Cut Is For You

Image Via An armadillo after losing his job to corporate "restructuring"​If something happens every month is it still considered news? We only ask because Anheuser-Busch InBev announced its plans to lay off another 400-plus employees from its North American workforce. That's the third time ... More >>

Wounded, Laid-Off Lee Enterprises Reporter Gets Hired & Hitched

Todd Smith was the only person wounded in the Kirkwood shootings to survive. ​In case you missed Deb Peterson's schmooze on Todd Smith, the former Suburban Journals reporter who was wounded in the Kirkwood City Hall shooting a year before being laid off by the employer he took a bullet for: Smith ... More >>

Kevin Renick's Song "Up in the Air" Makes It into Up in the Air

A few weeks ago, we reported that Kevin Renick's song "Up in the Air" was set for inclusion in the George Clooney movie Up In the Air. My colleague in LA, Randy Roberts, saw a screening of the movie, and confirmed its inclusion. Says the Daily RFT: And then there's the closing song, "Up In the Air, ... More >>

Post-Dispatch Art Critic David Bonetti Saying Adieu

David Bonetti, art critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will be punching the clock at 900 North Tucker for the last time this Friday. stltoday.comShrinking, and shrinking, and shrinking​Bonetti tells Daily RFT he's taking a "voluntary layoff," an option the local daily has given to some staffer ... More >>

Suburban Journals Announces Layoffs and Restructuring

Several former Suburban Journals staffers tell Daily RFT that the regional chain of free weeklies laid off an undetermined number of sports and news reporters yesterday. ​At the same time, the Journals managers told staff that the chain is restructuring its editions, and going from sixteen to ten. ... More >>

Yet Another Round of Layoffs at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch newsroom last night lost another four people: three news researchers (who compile material for reporters) and a photo assistant.Executive editor Arnie Robbins announced the cuts in a memo to staff this morning, saying, "We left a handful of positions unfilled over the cou ... More >>

The Morning Brew: Tuesday, 6.23

The recall of Nestlé Toll House cookie dough for E. coli contamination could lead to as many as 200 layoffs. (CNN)A Chicago-area company has recalled ground beef contaminated with E. coli. (Chicago Breaking News)The Chinese love Bordeaux, apparently. (AP)

Unreal: Post-Dispatch Lays Off More Peeps -- and Scoops Daily RFT

Unreal has learned that the local daily laid off 39 people today. And actually reported (an apparent press release) on it!According to the un-bylined brief, the P-D let go of 36 people in circulation and 3 people in classifieds. Most of the jobs are being outsourced to Indiana. (Dave Sinclair ain't ... More >>

Write or wrong: Readers debate the firing of reporter Todd Smith, who was shot at Kirkwood City Hall

The Morning Brew: Thursday, 2.19

Pork mega-producer Smithfield Foods is cutting jobs, closing factories and losing stock value. (AP)Guilty pleas in a big food-safety and graft case involving California's tomato-processing industry. (San Francisco Chronicle)A new study suggests eating apples might fight breast cancer. (Daily Telegra ... More >>

Post-Dispatch Layoffs Include 14 From Newsroom

Columnist and commentary page editor Eric Mink and prep/college sports editor Cameron Hollway were among the slew of folks who got pink-slipped at the local daily yesterday.  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch laid off 39 employees across four departments, including fourteen from the newsroom. ... More >>

Post-Dispatch Lays Off 39 More Employees

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch today let go of 39 people across four departments -- newsroom, finance, operations and advertising. As far as the newsroom goes, so far I know of two online employees and one copy editor who were fired. The cuts apparently came as the night shift began arriving for work a ... More >>

AB InBev To Lay Off 1,000 in St. Louis

Anheuser-Busch InBev employees are buzzing about imminent job cuts in the wake of InBev's recent acquisition of St. Louis' corporate crown jewel. The company today announced that it would cut 1,400 jobs in the United States, about 75 percent of them (1,050 jobs) in St. Louis. According to ... More >>

Why Oh Why Don't They Call it "The Lee EnterPrizes"?

Post Food Critic Still Eating Heartily

Joe Bonwich Still on the Menu

Suburban Journals Also Shedding Employees, 45 Fired Friday

Eighteen to be Laid Off Today at Post-Dispatch

Post-Dispatch Lays Off Seventeen, Including its Primary Crime Reporter

Thank You and Here's My Distress: Sinclair Pulls Advertising From Post-Dispatch

The Post-Dispatch is shedding news pages and slashing editorial staff – and there's no end in sight

Best Local Politician

George R. "Buzz" Westfall (1944-2003)

Sol Brothers

Mondays in the Sun takes a whimsical look at unemployment on the coast of Spain

Short Cuts