Washington Post begins layoffs, cutting 4 percent of workforce

The Washington Post began laying off a chunk of its workforce on Tuesday, cutting figures on the business side of the company.

The cuts did not affect the newsroom. About 4% of the company, or less than 100 people, will be laid off across its business divisions, Fox News Digital has learned. The layoffs, beginning Tuesday, were first reported by the New York Times.

“The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are,” a Post spokesperson said. “Changes across our business functions are all in service of our greater goal to best position The Post for the future.”

A source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital earlier this week that, while newsroom staffers were exempted from the forthcoming layoffs, “morale is just horrible” under publisher Will Lewis due to an exodus of talent leaving for jobs at different outlets, as well as heavy financial losses and dwindling traffic.

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Layoffs at The Washington Post began Tuesday, affecting about four percent of its workforce. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The layoffs come one year after The Post implemented mass buyouts. It was reported that 240 staffers took exit packages, preventing a round of layoffs at the time. 

It was reported last fall that The Post was on pace to lose $77 million in 2024, and that estimate came before the paper shed a jarring 250,000 subscribers as part of the liberal outrage over the paper’s move to not endorse a presidential candidate in the election, a decision made by its billionaire owner Jeff Bezos. 

The Post editorial board had been set, to no one’s surprise, to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris before Bezos intervened. Since it began offering White House endorsements in 1976, the paper has backed the Democratic candidate in every race except 1988, when it didn’t endorse anyone.

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The Bezos-owned Washington Post was on pace to lose more than $77 million in 2024. ((Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage) ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Several of the paper’s high-profile staffers have announced departures for other outlets in recent weeks, including reporters Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer and Tyler Page, columnist Charles Lane and editor Matea Gold. 

The Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes also resigned last week from the paper after her bosses rejected her illustration depicting Bezos groveling to President-elect Donald Trump.

Fox News Digital also learned of The Post’s plans to reassign its “gender columnist” Monica Hesse after a piece she had written was “killed” by editors. 

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The Washington Post is set to reassign Monica Hesse from being the paper’s “gender columnist” after a piece she penned was killed by editors. ( Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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Bezos previously alluded to making reforms at the paper in an op-ed defending the non-endorsement decision. 

“Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose,” Bezos wrote in October. “Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.”