The Layoff Club

Laid off from The Washington Post.

Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013, and its newsroom grew until 2022. It has shrunk since, through layoffs and buyouts, and in 2026 whole desks closed in one round. By March, editors were asking some laid-off staff to return temporarily, an arrangement the union called delayed layoffs.

What we know about The Washington Post severance and layoffs

  • More than 300 of an 800-person newsroom cut in February 2026, by press counts
  • 350 to 375 journalists cut by the Guild's count, of 790 before the layoffs
  • 277 jobs on WP Company LLC's February 6, 2026 notice to the District
  • 45 weeks, the reported cap on February 2026 severance
  • About 240 jobs the October 2023 buyout offer was built to cut
  • 5 WARN filings from Post businesses in our tracker, the earliest from 2015

The most recent The Washington Post layoff we've found

In September 2026 the Post named Jeff D'Onofrio, its interim chief since Will Lewis left days after the layoffs, permanent publisher and CEO, and a spokesperson said the paper was on track to break even in 2026, Poynter reported.

What The Washington Post layoffs have meant for employees

If you were among those cut at the Post in February 2026, it matters whether the Post Guild's contract covered your job. The Guild's own tally, which Washingtonian reported, took in dozens of journalists the contract didn't cover, from foreign bureau staff to editors and managers in Washington, and because each person was told individually, it took the union several days to see how far the cuts reached. The rehiring rights and the severance timing that Columbia Journalism Review described both come from that contract, so they reach the people it covers. If you're not sure your title sat inside the Guild's unit, it may be worth checking with the union before you count on either.

In the February package, pay and severance ran on separate dates. The District's 2026 WARN list gives April 10 as WP Company LLC's layoff date, and that's the day Business Insider said pay would end, as MediaPost relayed. Severance depended on signing the package by April 10, and by CJR's account payments were to start after April 30, at least 20 days after pay ended. For people brought back on a delayed layoff who aren't offered a full-time job, the Guild contract holds severance until September. The company's New York filing in our WARN tracker, for 47 jobs, carried a later effective date, May 8. Those dates belonged to the February 2026 round, and a later package would set its own. If you're weighing a delayed layoff, you can ask how it shifts your severance date and how the extra months of work square with a year on the rehiring list.

Both buyout programs on record went to groups the Post chose. The 2023 memo set a cap on acceptances, so saying yes wasn't a promise of a package, Washingtonian reported. The 2025 offer, per TheWrap, reached long-tenured newsroom staff and whole teams, the video department and the copy desks, so where you sat could count as much as how long you'd been there. The 2023 program was pitched as a way to head off layoffs, and in February 2026 the Post laid off roughly a third of its employees, Poynter reported. If a buyout reaches your group, you can ask how many acceptances it will take and how it ranks them before you decide.

Which company employed you has mattered too. When Express closed in 2019, its staff worked outside the Guild contract, and the Guild's executive director, Cet Parks, told Washingtonian their package sounded close to the contract's, though the magazine noted they'd get a lot less money than if they had unionized and would miss the preference Guild members get for openings after a layoff. The hawkers who handed out the paper were independent contractors and ineligible for any severance. If another company placed you at the Post, it may be worth asking that company what, if anything, comes with the end of the work.

Some of the coverage the Post cut found a home elsewhere in Washington. NOTUS, renamed The Washington Sun as it expanded into local news and sports, more than doubled its newsroom to 110 in 2026, and many of its hires were former Post staff, The New York Times reported, as Poynter noted. The Post itself told CJR in April that it had been hiring for jobs left open by staff who departed after the layoffs, and in February Murray had named politics, national affairs, national security, science, health, medicine, technology, climate and business as the areas the paper would focus on, Poynter reported. In our tracker, the Post's own filings sit under WP Company LLC, with the older Maryland ones under Post Community Media and the Gazette names, and there's more on filing a claim in the District, New York and Maryland, the three places those filings were made.

A sourced history of The Washington Post layoffs

  • February 2026, cuts across nearly all news departments

    Executive editor Matt Murray announced the restructuring on a morning Zoom call, ending the sports and books desks in their current form, shrinking metro and closing several foreign bureaus and the Post Reports podcast, Poynter reported. WP Company LLC's notice to the District listed 277 jobs with an April 10 layoff date.

  • May 2025, buyouts for veteran staff and selected teams

    Murray's memo opened a Voluntary Separation Program to news employees with 10 or more years and to the video department and copy desks, offering what he called enhanced packages, with the process set to end in July, TheWrap reported.

  • January 2025, business-side layoffs of 4% of staff

    The Post laid off 4% of its staff, mostly on the business side and sparing the newsroom, MediaPost reported; the Daily Beast, citing The New York Times, put 73 of the cuts in advertising, and other reports put the total at 100.

  • September 2024, Arc XP division lays off 54

    The Post's Arc XP division laid off 54 employees, MediaPost noted in its account of the January 2025 cuts.

  • October 2023, buyouts aimed at 240 jobs

    Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer announced voluntary separation packages for employees in specific roles and departments, with acceptances to be capped at about 240 and awarded by seniority if more said yes, in the hopes of averting layoffs, Washingtonian reported.

  • September 2019, Express commuter paper closed

    The Post shut its commuter paper Express and laid off its 20 staffers, calling them to a noon meeting to say Express had lost too much money two years in a row and that the day would be their last, Washingtonian reported.

  • June 2015, Gazette community papers closed

    Post Community Media, the Bezos-owned unit that ran The Gazette, closed its Montgomery and Prince George's County papers; the letter on closing its Gaithersburg headquarters counted 69 jobs, and staff were told they'd be paid through mid-August, Bethesda Magazine reported.

What to do if you're laid off from The Washington Post

The Washington Post layoff and severance questions

What severance has The Washington Post given laid-off employees?

Business Insider reported that the February 2026 package kept laid-off staff on the payroll until April 10, then offered four weeks of severance plus an added two weeks per year served for anyone with three or more years, up to 45 weeks, as MediaPost relayed. When Express closed in 2019, staffers told Washingtonian theirs paid full salary through October, then two weeks per year with a four-week minimum, at least 11 weeks in all, plus COBRA premiums for six months, or a year after ten years.

How many people did The Washington Post lay off in February 2026?

Roughly a third of Post employees lost their jobs, including more than 300 in the newsroom, CNN and The New York Times reported, according to Poynter. The Guild counted 350 to 375 journalists from a newsroom of 790, Washingtonian reported, a tally that took in staff outside the Guild's contract.

Did The Washington Post rehire any of the staff it laid off?

Some, within weeks. As of April 21, the Guild said 15 laid-off newsroom members had been offered delayed layoffs that had them working through July, and at least three people had been rehired full time, Columbia Journalism Review reported, though the Post said reporters offered full-time jobs wouldn't hold their old roles. CJR also quoted the Guild contract's rule that laid-off employees go on a rehiring list for a year and are to be hired by seniority for the same or comparable jobs as those open up.

How many WARN notices has The Washington Post filed?

Five filings from the Post's businesses appear in our WARN tracker, including 2 filings covering 324 jobs since the start of 2025. WP Company LLC filed both of those in February 2026, for 277 jobs in the District of Columbia and 47 in New York, and the other three are Maryland filings from the 2015 Gazette closings and a 2019 Laurel notice, under the names of Post Community Media, the unit Bethesda Magazine placed under Bezos' Nash Holdings, and its two Gazettes.

Why did The Washington Post lay off so many people?

Executive editor Matt Murray told staff the company's structure was too rooted in an era when the Post was a dominant, local print product, that organic search had fallen by nearly half in three years, and that daily story output had substantially fallen, Poynter reported. The same report put the paper's losses at $100 million in 2022 and $77 million the next year, and the Guild said management had framed the cuts as unavoidable when they were the result of choices.