Nearly half of The Washington Post’s journalists were laid off as part of restructuring efforts announced by the news outlet last week, much higher than the one-third estimate expected by the industry.
A Monday report by Washingtonian, citing WaPo’s journalist union data, said the Jeff Bezos-owned news publication let go between 350 and 375 workers, adding that the move may have been “the biggest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation.”
The Post had 790 journalists in its employ before the layoff was executed. At the high end of the new estimate, about 47.5% of the newsroom workforce was slashed.
The cuts have completely wiped out WaPo’s Sports, Books, and Staff Photography divisions and have heavily hurt the Metro unit and foreign bureaus, the report said, notably in South Korea, where a round-the-clock team of more than a dozen people has been impacted.