Chicago Media Jobs Cut at Tribune

Posted on April 20, 2009

Some Chicago media jobs will soon be lost as the newspaper industry continues to decline.

The Chicago Tribune recently announced that it will have to cut some jobs. However, according to an article by Editor & Publisher, the Tribune disputed a Crain’s Chicago Business report that the company would have cut 20 percent of its newsroom staff.

The Tribune plans not only to cut jobs in the newsroom, but throughout the paper. The company hasn’t yet announced exactly how many jobs will be lost. At the same time, however, there may be some job expansion in some of the paper’s departments.

“We are reorganizing the newsroom to meet our strategic goals, respond to the current economic downturn and position ourselves for success in the future,” Editor Gerould Kern said in the article. “It would be premature to say more at this time.”

As a whole, the Chicago area has been shedding jobs lately. The Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area had an unemployment rate of 9.3 percent during March, an increase from the 9 percent unemployment rate during February and higher than the national unemployment rate of 8.5 percent.

The area had a total non-farm employment of 3,673,900 workers during March, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 3,674,600 workers during February and a 3.7 percent decrease from last year.