Washington Post could lay off dozens of staffers as soon as this week: Report

The Washington Post is reportedly planning to lay off dozens of staffers this week in the newspaper's business division.

An announcement of the layoffs is possible as soon as this week, according to the Status newsletter.

The potential layoffs follow of succession of staff reductions – and depatures – amid the newspaper's financial woes. In May 2024, management announced a roughly $77 million loss over the past year and a 50% drop in audience since the highs of 2020, according to The Guardian newspaper. 

In September 2024, the paper laid off 54 employees in its tech software division, a year after cutting 240 jobs through voluntary buyouts.

More recently, the paper, owned by after billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, lost 250,000 subscriptions for halting a planned endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race. 

Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, quit on Friday after the publication killed a cartoon reportedly showing Bezos bowing to President-elect Trump. Her editor, David Shipley, contradicted her description of what led to the cancelled cartoon.

"Not every editorial judgment is a reflection of a malign force," he said. "My decision was guided by the fact that we had just published a column on the same topic as the cartoon and had already scheduled another column – this one a satire – for publication. The only bias was against repetition."