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Is The Washington Post Toast? Layoffs Spread as We Head Into 2023

Close up of TV screen showing a large "Breaking News" headline

While the fortunes of traditional media have been subject to downturn, thanks to the rise of digital media, the fortunes of digital media are now, ironically, making headlines as it shows signs of going the way of the big tech downturn. 

Silicon Valley and the tech downturn are no longer alone as we prepare to enter 2023. Both traditional and digital media appear to be heading in the wrong direction, as inflation combines with lowering readership/viewing/listening figures and layoffs ensue.

According to a report by AXIOS, CNN is down 47 percent and MSNBC down 33 percent in viewing figures, with Fox News beating the trend with an upward trajectory of 12 percent in the same six-month span, between January and June, 2022. The top five digital news providers in the U.S. dropped 18 percent in the first half of 2022.

Layoffs announced by CNN in November are expected to affect hundreds of employees, while NPR announced hiring freezes. ABC’s December layoffs include national correspondents and “The View”’s senior executive producer, Estey McLoughlin. 

Shockingly, social media engagement with news content dropped a massive 50 percent during the same period. Some apologists claim this may be due in part to Facebook purposefully moving news engagement to its “News Tab”; however, the big picture indicates that this may be only part of the story.

BuzzFeed also announced layoffs in early December, dropping 12 percent of its workforce – around 180 people – citing an ad pullback and economic downturn.

While the overwhelming consensus appears to be that people have become weary of a constant cycle of bad news, the rise in viewership for Fox appears to be willfully ignored as those assessments are made. The indication is that something else may be the root of the problem; and an unwillingness to face uncomfortable problems usually means negative long-term outcomes.

Is The Washington Post Toast?

The Washington Post’s digital subscriptions and digital advertising revenue have been described as “stagnating” and the paper is set to show financial losses for 2022.

When The Post’s publisher, Fred Ryan, announced layoffs to shocked staff at a town hall meet he apparently didn’t anticipate follow-up questions, despite his workforce being made up of professional journalists. When questions came at him anyway, he scarpered as quickly as he could.

One sneaky journalist, of course, covertly filmed the escape and leaked it online, perhaps providing a silver lining to Mr Ryan’s poorly thought out Happy Holidays message.

The announced layoffs came a couple of weeks before Christmas and are scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2023. In November, The Post announced that it was ending its once beloved print and digital magazine and laying off the staff, citing “economic headwinds.” This despite the fact that five of 40 stories most popular online for the paper were produced by the magazine and its staff, which first appeared in 1986. 

The fact that this recent communications disaster is just one of many horror stories that have happened as companies layoff staff is another story – but an important one.

To stay on point, the headline of this article may be too limited. Many are now openly asking the question: “Is journalism dying?” Some are even questioning the timing of the headcount reduction and becoming conspiratorial in their thinking.

Does that make sense? The mainstream media has always been controlled. If it tanks, some will fall one way and others another – one group making self-education a priority and no longer trusting any approved narratives.Some would argue that the Bezos owned Post was anything but a bastion of free-thinking American journalism anyway.

The answers are probably in the big picture. And that very much includes the tech industry, inflation, an unemployment rate the Fed claimed in September would rise to 4.4 percent by the end of 2023 – even though it then dropped back to 3.5 percent before returning to 3.7 – the continuation of high quit rates and the phenomena of “quiet quitting”.

Making the big picture more of a Picasso than a Renoir.

The New York (Bad) Times

Part of the downturn in this industry is pointed at Donald Trump. Once he left office, everybody saw the curtain come down on the only show in town, and business suffered. However, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have increased subscriptions since his departure. 

Still, rather than celebrating, hundreds of New York Times employees chose to spend a day standing outside the building, striking and chanting.

The mantra: “What’s outrageous? Stagnant wages!”

The strike is the first of its type for the paper in over 40 years. Unable to come to agreements with the union of New York Times’ editorial, media, and tech professional workers, The New York Times Guild, over issues including salaries and health-and-retirement benefits. Of course, the word “inflation” is coming up a lot in “discussions”.

Negotiations have shot back and forth for months now, with both sides seemingly unwilling to yield, and the strike as the culmination of frustrations, powerplays, or whatever you choose to think. Relying on international employees and non-union journalists to fill in the gaps has only added fuel to the fire.

Unsurprisingly, The Times saw protests begin in August over – wait for it – the union representing technology workers.

The Outlook in 2023

While many claim that we have been in recession since the U.S. economy shrank by 0.6 percent over two straight quarters this year, answering the technical definition of recession, others point to 50-year low unemployment figures at 3.5 percent, and claim that COVID-related disruptions have resulted in confused economic outcomes.

Those who believe we have been in a recession are predicting a depression in 2023, with unemployment starting to rise as layoffs across industries spread. With a current unemployment rate at a still healthy 3.7 percent, there is room for cautious optimism, with a recommended mantra of:

“Hope for the best. Expect the worst. And deal with what comes.”

Founded back in 2003, Ladders has weathered many storms with its members and knows how talented, hard-working people can optimize their skills and experience to dodge the big waves and stay on solid ground, with a clear career-path stretching out ahead.

We won’t be making the above mantra our official tagline any time soon, but we do want all professionals, whether in the recruitment industry or not, to think about it.

In preparation for 2023, with a view to increasing time-to-hire and improved retention rates, we’ve created our Hiring Teams Solution, which includes dedicated Promoted Jobs and Sourcing packages, live support, resume viewing during search with full contact info on display, and much more.

As this article points out, there are a variety of reasons why traditional and digital media is going through tough times, and it isn’t all inflation driven. The fact that it comes so soon after the stunning big tech downturn appears to fulfill many dark predictions about the immediate future, but that may not be the case.

At time of writing, the quit rate remains at 4.0 million, with The Great Resignation still in play and the “Quiet Quitting” phenomena on the rise. While some employers see a downturn as an advantage for them in this area, many warn that the much beloved remote work model is here to stay, and those who continue attempting to roll it back will likewise continue to suffer negative outcomes.

Whether or not the latter point of view is correct is up for grabs, as most things are during these strange times, but it would certainly be a strange time for companies to gamble so much.

Here’s to 2023 – stay in touch.

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Unemployment rises as The Great Resignation becomes “Quiet Quitting”

The unemployment rate checked in with a bang for August, moving to 3.7% from 3.5%, while 315,000 jobs became available. Is the the first big jolt in the wrong direction so many – particularly those in the “Yes, we are in a recession!” camp –  have been predicting? Job gains showed most forcefully in health care, retail trade, and professional and business services.

While the number of unemployed rose by 344,000 to 6 million.

Those considered active jobs seekers – they’ve looked for work during the last 12 months, but not in the four weeks prior to data collection – stayed steady at 1.4 million. They are described as “wanting and being available for work.”

Permanent layoffs increased by 188,000 to 1.4 million. New figures on what we all now know as The Great Resignation aren’t out yet, but the July number was 4.2 million, bringing the quit rate to 2.7%.

So why is everybody talking about Quiet Quitting?

Peacefully Sitting, Quietly Quitting

Quiet Quitting seems to be a perfect term for the complete lack of passion it describes. The Great Resignation was, and – as far as we know at the moment – still is, fuelled by enough passion to make people walk out of their jobs in the hope of something better. Something more flexible. Something more… remote.

These folk don’t have the same fire in their bellies. And that may be the underlying issue.

“Quiet quitting’ is a term that has taken social media by storm and is become something of a phenomenon in countries like China and Australia. Unlike other terms such as ‘job hopping’ or the ‘Great Resignation’, which can be defined easily, this acts as a teaser term, leading to lots of online questions around what it actually means.

Most sources say it began in China, with the term ‘tang ping’ or ‘lying flat’ taking hold across the country, among young people demanding a better work-life balance.

Ultimately, it means employee disengagement. Since job hopping and the Great Resignation were terms coined to describe new phenomena in the work place, this term could be seen as disingenuous. In reality, it appears to have been coined by people wanting to discuss an old issue by attracting people to the idea – which is actually very clever.

It would be a shame to think that people intelligent enough to come up with new terms for an old problem, then take social media by storm in various countries, are actually disengaged in their own jobs.

This really does conjure up an image of wasted talent.

Of course, the fact that it’s becoming so popular in the US – on the heels of the Great Resignation, is more than a coincidence. There is a feeling that burnout, or a desperate response to the onset of burnout, is permeating these trends.

So What Does It Mean to Quiet Quit?

Employees will often become disengaged if they feel overworked and underappreciated. The core of quiet quitting appears to be a refusal to do anything more than the basic duties a person was hired to perform. That doesn’t sound so bad on the face of it, but what it implies is toxic: employees who think of their jobs as nothing more than a paycheck. 

Let’s be clear. If the problem is that a business can’t cope with people fulfilling their employment agreements and doing what they were hired to do, it means the problem is with that business. They are expecting complete devotion and gratitude and unreasonable “flexibility”. 

If the problem is a lazy person clinging to the limits of their job at the expense of team spirit, or refusing to help others by going the extra mile now and again, the problem is with that person.

Clearly, there is no simple answer to solve this question.

However, quiet quitters do guarantee that teamwork will break down, because so much relies on people helping each other – rather than individuals performing pre-set tasks that exist within a relentlessly smooth, uninterrupted process.

That’s simply not realistic.

And once teamwork starts to break down, the company follows.

When people stop helping each other with simple tasks because ‘that’s not my job’ or ‘that’s not in my sprint,’ resentments start to build and cracks start to appear. It’s possible to think: ‘Well, it’s for the best if those types quit.’ That’s fine, but not if you’re responsible for creating those people by bringing them into your badly run company.

Quiet Quitting Vs. The Great Resignation

With fears of recession in the US, some believe the end of the Great Resignation is in sight, as employees start to fear losing their jobs. It now seems possible that one phenomenon will be replaced by another, equally toxic, phenomenon. If you cannot engage your employees, you will end up with teams of quiet quitters, slowly and indifferently destroying your business.

If a recession gives you the leverage to force reluctant workers back into the office, for example, what sort of engagement will you inspire? How much long-term value can you squeeze out of people’s fear of losing their jobs?

Try to imagine how that could go wrong.

Engaging your employees does not mean burning them out. If you can manage that, you should think about showing credit where credit is due. Office politics and cliques create quiet quitters wherever they fester. Breaking down office politics, giving praise, handing out cash bonuses for ‘above and beyond’ performance – these types of positive engagement can have great ROI.

A well-designed workflow and transparency in communications will also make a difference.

Hiring good managers is also a great way to prevent the production of quiet quitters in your company. Getting it wrong means trouble. Another method is using Ladders to find highly skilled, highly qualified professionals, pay them what they’re worth, and treat them in the way they deserve.”

And getting that right should also keep The Great Resignation at bay, too. (Maybe.)

So Where Are We Going With This?

With the drop in employment to 3.5% last month, some were quick to see this as the start of a move in the right direction, and evidence that the recession naysayers could be wrong. Fair enough, but Ladders CEO, Dave Fish, gave his advice clearly, and it was reported as follows:

If the current unemployment rate of 3.5 percent cannot be sustained and starts to move into reverse in the near future, Dave believes the consequences could be shocking for professionals across industries:

  • For employers: Employers will likely find themselves ripping up hiring strategies and going into financial survival mode. Current top-of-mind issues like retention rates will go out the window as the balance of power shifts and employees become worried about losing their jobs. Ironically, too much of a perceived shift will almost certainly backfire. Flexibility is here to stay, so employers who make too much of having the upper hand could pay a heavy price.
  • For professionals: Professionals who have been enjoying The Great Resignation will start to experience a colder world with less opportunities. However, as stated, they will also see that many remote-work and other flexible options will remain. Some may need to switch industries or brush up in new areas of expertise to gain those career options, but there is little chance that millions of people will simply accept that the game has changed and knuckle down.

“We have helped our members weather many storms over the past 19 years,” Dave told us, “throughout The Great Recession, the pandemic, and current uncertainty about the future. At the moment, we’re delighted about the new low unemployment figures, but still offering our Premium careers package to businesses at a discount, so they can gift a Ladders membership to any professionals who find themselves having job offers rescinded, or being laid off. 

“As we continue to navigate these economic challenges and bizarre contradictions, our team is committed to helping professionals compete effectively, and to provide the tools necessary to ensure their success, regardless of how the balance ultimately tilts.”

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Boom and Gloom: The Technology Downturn

3D rendering of a female robot looking sad and crying against a dark background.

While employment booms across industries, with employers adding even more jobs than anticipated in April – 28,000 above the Dow Jones estimate – the tech sector is showing serious signs of a downturn. Industry upswing stars include leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing.

So why is tech tanking?

Obviously, there are no prizes for anybody who has the correct answer. Lockdowns led to increasing numbers of consumers spending their time and their money online. The online world provided not only the best escape from a dreadful reality, but also a practical way to answer fundamental needs, like getting the shopping done.

Of course, that’s the simple version. Lockdowns affected everything, including the broader interests and investments of companies. Here we’ll look at companies that are either all out tech, or heavily invested enough at a core-offering level to be included.

The Great Resignation has left employers trying to find the best strategies to attract and retain new talent—often by throwing money at the problem—while tech is tightening its belt and layoffs in the industry are fast becoming an alarming trend.

Let’s take a look.

Business woman sits at her desk in a bright office, wearing a Virtual Reality headset with her hands up, touching thin air.
“This looks great! But I can’t find my keyboard.”

Metaverse Crashing to Earth?

Issues in the real world appear to have come full circle and kicked the metaverse in the purse, right where it hurts. On May 4th, Insider revealed a Meta internal memo stating that Facebook is freezing hiring and scaling back new talent acquisition across the company. Citing “challenges” that caused it to “miss revenue targets”.

Facebook’s global head of recruiting, Miranda Kalinowski, said—in a separate memo—that the company’s engineering team would be the first among those impacted. Facebook did freeze hiring at the beginning of the pandemic, but this was a sensible move, designed to give the company time to adjust and put new processes in place for health-aware onboarding.

This latest hiring freeze, on the other hand, is all about “our business needs and in light of the expense guidance given for this earnings period”—helped along by its Reality Labs division losing $2.9 billion in the first quarter.

Curse of the metaverse? Or barely a bump in the road? Speaking of which…

Man with a mobile phone watches as his Uber driver arrives.
“I can’t believe they still have to use real drivers.”

Uber Hiring U-turn

Uber is to slam the brakes on hiring after a “seismic shift” in investor sentiment, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced to employees in an email obtained by CNBC. Uber also plans to cut back on marketing and incentives spend. From this point forward, “We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board.”

He continued: “We have made a ton of progress in terms of profitability, setting a target for $5 billion in Adjusted EBITDA in 2024, but the goalposts have changed. Now it’s about free cash flow. We can and should get there fast.” Just like their drivers.

During the pandemic, Uber leaned heavily on its food delivery service Eats. After the lifting of COVID restrictions, revenue for Uber rose to 6.9 billion in the first quarter. The downside? A $5.9 billion loss during the COVID period, due to a slump in its equity investments.

Either way, Uber says: “We will be deliberate about when and where we add headcount.”

Animation showing Robin Hood in forest, holding bow loaded with arrow.
“Is it aim and fire or fire and aim? Tsk.”

Robinhood’s Aim

The original Robin Hood (Kevin Costner to you), was knocked spectacularly off balance at least once in his career. Likewise, retail brokerage Robinhood has announced it’s cutting 9% of a reported total of 3,800 employees. Shares fell more than 5% in extended trading after the announcement.

Rapid expansion last year somehow led to “duplicate roles and job functions”. Unfortunately, two heads were apparently not better than one and “these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency, increase our velocity, and ensure that we are responsive to the changing needs of our customers,” according to CEO Vlad Tenev.

He added: “While the decision to undertake this action wasn’t easy, it is a deliberate step to ensure we are able to continue delivering on our strategic goals and furthering our mission to democratize finance.”

Woman using an indoor exercise bike with digital montior.
“I wish they’d make a real bike with a TV attached.”

Peloton in a Spin

Unable to bear the idea of running to stand still, Peloton cut around 20% of its corporate workforce – an estimated 2,800 people – and replaced its CEO, hoping a new lean look will impress investors and rejig its business for some muscular growth in the near future.

The announcement, which came earlier this month, followed rumors that the company could soon become the target of a takeover. However, the makeover news quelled much of that excitement, if not all of it. Many feel that Peloton will not escape that fate.

No matter how fast they peddle. Sorry, pedal. 

A Wall Street darling during the pandemic, the news in response to the announcement came with headlines like: “The Rise and Fall of Peloton” and phrases like “crash and burn”.

Still – no pain, no gain.

Terrible puns about the indoor-exercise success story aside, Barry McCarthy, former chief financial officer of Netflix and Spotify, is now the new president and CEO, while founder and former CEO, John Foley, is executive chairman of the board.

Most of the news since the announcement has been an exercise in things not working out: big borrowing, price slashing, stalled product production, and falling stocks – if people in high places are sweating right now, they appear determined to take the strain.

Peloton is going downhill, according to many key observers, but everybody remains fascinated by those spinning wheels. And they could get back in shape.

A male and female model step out of a limousine onto a red carpet.
“Vanity, vanity, all is… Ohh, nice dress!”

Cameo Yells “Cut!”

Cameo became a star after coming up with the novel idea of letting people pay their favorite actors, artists, athletes and celebrities to send them personalized video greetings. A crazy idea that hit big with the public, the company was valued at around $1 billion last year after gaining the attention of investors such as Amazon, Google, and UTA.

This month, it announced it was cutting approximately 25% of its workforce—87 members of staff in real terms, announcing a need to “right-size” the business after a pandemic-related reversal of fortunes.

Hit the reverse button back to 2020 and we see Cameo claiming the generation of around $100 million in gross revenue—4.5 times up on the previous year. Unfortunately, one-season-only shooting stars include high-flyers such as chief product officer, Nundu Janakiram, SVP of marketing, Emily Boschwitz, and chief technology officer, Rob Post.

Co-Founder and CEO, Steven Galanis, told Variety: “To support both fan and talent demand during the pandemic lockdowns, Cameo’s headcount exploded from just over 100 to nearly 400. We hired a lot of people quickly, and market conditions have rapidly changed since then. Accordingly, we have right-sized the business to best reflect the new realities.”

Some of the biggest stars in the world have found themselves on the cutting room floor, so this shouldn’t be the end of the story for anybody’s career. NEXT!

Contrasts and Questions

Contrasting the above with the rest of the economy is startling. In the world outside tech, employers are eagerly seeking new ways to attract and retain talent. The Great Resignation/Great Reshuffle continues to have a massive impact across industries: rising labor costs, inflation, and resignations are leaving hiring teams everywhere struggling to find their feet on continuously shifting ground.

Of the industry upswing stars highlighted at the start of this article, leisure and hospitality has had the biggest bounce back success, with job growth at 78,000. Does this signal that people are returning to their pre-pandemic habits, or that more people are learning to appreciate the “get up, get out there” lifestyle more than they did before it became prohibited? 

The tech industry skyrocketed during the pandemic and other industries suffered, so now the tables are turning. This is clear, so the real question is: How does it all balance out? If the issue can be readily identified, the tech industry can steer its way back to normalcy, right?

This isn’t Boom and Bust, it’s Boom and Gloom.

Or is it? 

Facing the Future vs. Facing Forward

As is often pointed out, tech industry trends are notoriously hard to track and analyze, because the business models are so specific to what they do and offer. Having said that, Ned Davis Research’s Veneta Dimitrova did analyze available data, including reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and concluded: “There doesn’t seem to be any leading tendency from that industry for overall employment growth.”

Then there’s inflation and the tightening of purse strings across the country. Amazon takes a hit in that respect. Back to the metaverse and we need to factor in Apple’s iPhone privacy changes, which impacted ad targeting—a potential $10 billion revenue hit—which is not to be sniffed at by anybody in this universe or, indeed, the metaverse.

If it was easy, we’d all be visionaries and business leaders, right?

Still, this places hiring teams in a bizarre world where everything is shifting with relentless speed, realities are either red hot or stone cold depending on needs, and each reality poses its own set of problems to be solved.

Ultimately, hiring managers with good recruiters on hand are always in a strong position. As mentioned in other articles, using experienced recruiters as talent advisors at the planning stages, rather than internal vendors to be issued tasks after the fact, could prove a winning strategy moving forward.

Of course, that depends on which direction you think forward is.

“Good move, Netflix.”