Deseret News Sells Property To Fund Employee Layoffs

 

SALT LAKE CITY, UT (June 9, 2008) – The Deseret News is reporting that the newspaper has sold a piece of its downtown property to a real-estate arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a little less than $3 million dollars, and that proceeds from the sale will be used to help fund the layoff of 35 newspaper employees in the coming weeks.

The Deseret News is owned by the LDS church.

Publisher Jim Wall said the property on Salt Lake City's Regent Street included a former printing press building and a building known at the "drivers lounge." Wall said the sale will help with "our employee severance package."

The newspaper's board of directors has approved cutting up to 35 employees, and the newspaper's editor said the 32 percent decrease in the paper's annual revenue is mostly due to classified advertising sales being down.

The newspaper says employees who volunteer to leave or who are laid off will get three weeks of pay plus 1.5 weeks of pay for each year of service plus any remaining vacation time that has accrued.

 

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