Laid off from Gannett.

What Gannett layoffs have meant for employees

If you've worked at a Gannett paper, the company behind it has been getting smaller on purpose for years. It took its current shape in November 2019, when New Media, as the 2019 annual report explains, bought the old Gannett and took its name, and the 2025 annual report counted roughly a third as many people on its U.S. payroll when that year ended. Those year-end headcounts aren't a layoff tally, but the company describes its restructuring as programs designed to "right-size" its employee base and consolidate facilities. The cost cutting, the Boston Globe has noted, comes as the company works to pay off nearly $1 billion in debt after its 2019 merger with GateHouse Media. The cuts have kept coming under the new name, into the fall of 2026.

For production workers, the cuts have come as plant closings announced one at a time. The company says it keeps reducing the number of presses it runs by consolidating print operations, and each closing set for 2025 was to move the printing elsewhere rather than stop it, so the jobs were set to end while the papers went on being printed. In Providence, the Globe noted, the planned closing left the Journal's newsroom out. The Sterling Heights notice, as CBS Detroit described it, laid out a schedule of layoffs spread over months, listed roles from press operators to electricians and noted that some of the workers had a union. If you have a separation letter from the Sterling Heights plant, your scheduled departure may differ from a coworker's, because the notice spread its layoffs across several months.

Newsroom and corporate jobs have gone differently, in companywide rounds that reached many papers at once. When the December 2022 round began, a spokesperson declined to say which papers and positions were affected, Poynter reported. The memo behind the September 2026 cuts, as PR Newswire's recap quoted it, said "growing audience by producing more content isn't as effective as it once was" and that search traffic was under pressure. If your work is in digital production, audience or search, the new combined team the company described is where it said that work would sit.

A union contract can change how one of these rounds reaches you. About 15% of the company's U.S. employees were union-represented as 2025 ended, and the company says the terms of union contracts can influence what its restructuring programs cost. In the August 2022 round the vast majority of the more than 100 layoffs Poynter tracked fell in non-union newsrooms, and Guild leaders said newly unionized newsrooms still without contracts were protected by "status quo" rules that bar changes without bargaining. Mike Reed's October 2022 memo, as Media Nation published it, said its terms might not apply to anyone covered by a bargaining agreement or represented by a union. The same companywide announcement can land differently on two people at the same paper.

The three plant closings set for 2025 were in Rhode Island, Michigan and Arizona, and the unemployment rules for those states are at Rhode Island unemployment benefits, Michigan unemployment benefits and Arizona unemployment benefits. Florida, New Jersey, Indiana and Wisconsin account for the most WARN entries tied to Gannett in our tracker, going back to 2008. If a buyout like 2022's comes around again, the window to say yes may be short, as it was then, when the memo went out on October 12 and asked for an answer by October 18. Anyone who took that one also had to keep working through November 4.

A sourced history of Gannett layoffs

• October 2026, sports reporters, then the Amarillo newsroom

  Sports reporters at papers across the chain said in October 1 posts, which Awful Announcing collected, that they'd been let go. Days later, Poynter reported, the Amarillo Globe-News let the rest of its editorial staff go "without warning."

• September 2026, audience overhaul and staff cuts

  USA Today cut staff, PR Newswire reported, and said it would replace its audience team with a combined Audience and Digital Production Team of 23 to 30 people. The cuts also reached local papers the company owns.

• July 2025, Deer Valley plant closing announced

  Gannett said, the Republic reported, that 117 workers would be laid off and the north Phoenix plant shut, with the paper printed in Las Vegas from October. Every full- and part-time production employee in printing and packaging was to get a severance package.

• January 2025, Sterling Heights printing plant closing announced

  The Detroit Free Press reported Gannett's decision to close the plant in January, with the papers' production set to move to other facilities. The WARN notice, filed May 1 and described by CBS Detroit, listed 109 production workers, most set to leave on or about August 4.

• November 2024, Providence Journal plant closing announced

  Gannett said the plant would close the following March, the Boston Globe reported, with 136 printing and packaging jobs going and the Journal's printing moving to New Jersey. A spokesperson blamed a single supplier's decision to stop making the press's plates.

• December 2022, 6% of the news division

  Gannett began layoffs aimed at cutting its 3,440-person news division by 6%, roughly 200 jobs, on December 1, Poynter reported, after news division head Henry Faure Walker warned of cuts on Nov. 17. Other divisions were being cut as well.

• October 2022, buyouts, unpaid leave and a 401(k) match pause

  Chief executive Mike Reed's memo, which Media Nation published, offered severance to employees who resigned and signed a separation and release agreement, suspended the 401(k) match from October 24 and required five unpaid days in late December.

• August 2022, 3% of the U.S. workforce

  Starting Aug. 12, a week after posting a $54 million quarterly loss, Gannett laid off roughly 400 people, 3% of its U.S. workforce, and also cut 400 open positions. Terminations reached 70 newsrooms, USA Today among them, by Poynter's count.

• 2020, pandemic furloughs, pay cuts and buyouts

  Shortly after the pandemic began, Poynter later recounted, Gannett laid off a number of journalists and imposed furloughs and pay cuts, then offered buyouts to roughly 500 employees later that year.

What to do if you're laid off from Gannett

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Gannett's biggest hubs: Florida, New Jersey, Indiana, Wisconsin. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Gannett's hub states run: Florida, New Jersey, Indiana, Wisconsin, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.