USA Today to enforce leave and extend freeze on pay increase

Posted by Erina Lin on February 12, 2010 at 4:39 PM

Gannett Co.'s USA Today will impose an unpaid leave for about 1,500 employees before July, in order to reduce cost and counter advertising and circulation sales downturn, according to a memo to staff, Bloomberg reported.

According to the publisher, David Hunke, in the memo, a pay halt started in February 2009 will be extended by at least 90 days.

"National advertising revenues in general were still down from the previous year as were paid advertising pages at USA Today. Circulation sales continued to be lower in the fourth quarter," added Hunke.

Gannett announced in December that most employees at local papers would be required to take five-day unpaid leave this quarter, originally excluding these at USA Today. However, most USA Today staff had to take two-week unpaid leave last year as part of a plan mandated by Gannett.

The memo was confirmed by Ed Cassidy, a spokesman for USA Today, Bloomberg reported.

"The title's nearly 1,500 employees must take a one-week furlough between Feb. 28 and July 3," Cassidy said Thursday, according to an Associated Press article posted on W Top.

Gannett, owner of more than 80 newspapers in U.S., has been through three consecutive difficult years of ad revenue decline, which later led to wage reductions, layoffs and furloughs as advertising is the main revenue source for newspapers.

USA Today, the paper with the second-largest circulation in the country, decreased 17 percent year-over-year to 1.9 million copies in the six months through September, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The drop was even bigger than an 11 percent industrywide.