Reporter Lisa Colonno, sports copy editor Brian Granger and sports reporter Dan McCool were laid off Thursday, joining director of photography Don Tormey, news editor Suzanne Behnke, designer Scott Lester, features writer Dawn Sagario, writer Mary Challender and writer Kathy Hickman.

Two sources have also confirmed that the paper’s Iowa City bureau has been closed and reporter Erin Jordan and photographer Harry Baumert have also been let go. The Register’s parent company, Gannett Co. Inc., also owns the Iowa-City Press Citizen.

Several other employees received demotions, including editors Larry Ballard and Kathy Bolton, and investigative reporter Lee Rood. (UPDATE: While originally reported that Register investigative reporter Lee Rood was demoted, Rood tells the Iowa Independent that she was not demoted and she did not receive a pay cut. Her job did not change).

Sources inside the Register tell the Iowa Independent the newsroom layoffs include director of photography Don Tormey, news editor Suzanne Behnke, designer Scott Lester, features writer Dawn Sagario, writer Mary Challender and writer Kathy Hickman. Several other newsroom employees were let go but their names could not be confirmed. There were also layoffs in advertising, production, circulation, marketing, information technology and finance.

The cuts, which were the first of 2009 after 100 newspaper jobs in Iowa were cut in 2008, came at the direction of The Register’s parent company, Gannet Co. Inc. Nationwide, Gannett plans to eliminate 1,400 jobs.

Below is the memo Register Publisher Laura Hollingsworth sent to employees this afternoon:

All,

This has been a difficult week for all of us at The Des Moines Register.

As you know last week Gannett announced layoffs due to the continuing economic downturn. Locally, a total of 36 Des Moines Register employees and six employees at our Central Iowa and Marengo weekly operations are impacted. Departments affected include advertising, production, circulation, marketing, information technology, finance and the news staff.

I understand the financial and emotional impact of this action and I know that all of our thoughts are with these employees and their families.

I know I can count on you to continue to support each other.  Please see your department manager if you have specific questions or concerns.   Again, I invite anyone who wishes to talk with me directly to contact me at any time.

I remain optimistic.   This economy will turn and we’ll be ready to move with it when it does.

With appreciation, LH

Laura L. Hollingsworth
President and Publisher
The Des Moines Register
West Group President
Gannett U.S. Community Publishing

Laura Hollingsworth, president and publisher of The Des Moines Register, told employees in a memo last week that the cuts were coming, though the size and scope was still unknown. Robert Dickey, president of Gannett U.S. Community Publishing, said most layoffs would be finalized by Thursday as part of a companywide staff reduction of 1,400 employees. In 2008, the Register eliminated 70 positions.

Gannett’s other Iowa paper, the Iowa City Press-Citizen, announced Wednesday that it was laying off four employees. There will also be changes to the paper’s circulation staff due to a new agreement with the Cedar Rapids Gazette to print and distribute the Press-Citizen.

The Des Moines Register's historic downtown office building.

The paper reports cuts will come from the U.S. Community Publishing division, which consists of more than 80 local dailies, citing an anonymous source within the company. Jim Hopkins, who follows the company at GannettBlog, reported last month that layoffs were expected to take place July 8 and total 4,500 jobs in the company’s newspaper division. Hopkins now reports that the layoffs will include a mix of newsroom and business positions, and notices will be completed by the end of the month.

Last year, Gannett eliminated more than 4,000 newspaper positions, including more than 100 newsroom positions in Iowa. The Register alone eliminated nearly 70 positions. Since the layoffs, the company has instituted two rounds of weeklong furloughs in hopes of staving off another round of job cuts.

Sources inside The Register’s newsroom said there has been no formal announcment from management regarding layoffs.

Jim Hopkins, who follows the company at GannettBlog, is reporting that two sources have confirmed the company’s principal executive and chief financial officer has ordered across-the-board layoffs. The layoffs are expected to take place July 8 and total 4,500 jobs in the company’s newspaper division.

Sources inside The Register’s newsroom confirmed the rumors have made there way to employees at the paper, but said management has not made any formal announcements regarding job cuts.

The headquarters of The Des Moines Register in downtown Des Moines.

Last August, Gannett eliminated 1,000 jobs, including 600 layoffs, at its 85 local papers across the country. At that time, The Register eliminated 12 full-time and three part-time positions, and announced 11 vacant positions would go unfilled.

Another round of layoffs followed in December, this time totaling nearly 3,000 employees company wide. In Iowa, The Register eliminated 56 jobs and Gannett’s other Iowa papers — the Iowa City Press-Citizen, the Indianola Record-Herald and the Altoona Herald – eliminated 25 jobs.

All told, Gannett eliminated more than 100 newsroom positions in Iowa during 2008.

Since the layoffs, the company has instituted two rounds of weeklong furloughs in hopes of staving off another round of job cuts. However, in an interview with the Iowa Independent in December, Register Publisher Laura Hollingsworth said she could not guarantee that the layoffs were over in 2009.

Hollingsworth and Susan Patterson Plank, the paper’s vice president of marketing and digital development, could not be reached for comment.

Local paper The Ottumwa Courier broke news of the layoffs last week, with the company denying the rumors and refusing to comment. The company’s second-quarter profit dropped 38 percent as customers cut spending on tractors, mowers and construction equipment.

Of approximately 1,000 total employees, 494 will go on indefinite layoff on June 29. Another 195 will face periodic layoffs the company terms “inventory adjustment layoffs,” throughout the next several months. All layoffs are in the production section of the plant.

In March, the company layed off 40 workers in Ottumwa. Statewide, the company currently employs 11,400 workers.

Sources inside the Register’s newsroom confirmed that they were notified Monday morning, although most said they saw the news coming months ago when the first round of furloughs was announced.

“This is not news to us,” one employee said.

In a memo to staff, Gannett CEO Craig Dubow said the company would begin the second quarter “without any real relief in sight from this unprecedented economic downturn and its challenge to our company.”

The company had to decide between more layoffs (more than 2,000 employees were let go in 2008) and more furloughs (every employee was mandated to take a one week unpaid furlough during the first quarter of 2009).

“We chose, for most employees, a furlough program consisting of at least one week of unpaid leave to be taken in April, May or June,” Dubow said.

For Gannett newspapers like The Register, salaried employees must take one full week at one time while hourly employee must take five days over the course of the three-month quarter. Employees who earn over $90,000 will take a second week of unpaid leave.

UPDATE: The Des Moines Register becomes one of the first Gannett papers to report on the latest round of company-wide furloughs and adds one new detail: the 1,000 full- and part-time employees at The Des Moines Register, the Iowa City Press-Citizen and the Register’s weekly papers will have their wages frozen for at least one year.

The site, CanMyBossDoThat.com, is a project of Interfaith Worker Justice (IWJ), a Chicago-based organization which calls upon religious values in order to educate, organize and mobilize the religious community in the U.S. on issues and campaigns that will improve wages, benefits and working conditions for workers.

Areas covered include safety at work, rules to attaining unemployment benefits, access to COBRA health insurance plans and legal rights during layoffs. The site has increased relevance after national job figures showed the unemployment rate jumped from 7.6 percent in January to 8.1 percent in February, the highest level since late 1983. More than 651,000 jobs were lost in February, the third month in a row that job losses topped 600,000.

Iowa’s unemployment rate stood at 4.6 percent in December and is expected to be much higher when new figures are released this week.

(h/t Wendy Norris at the Colorado Independent)

Des Moines Register Publisher Laura Hollingsworth informed readers in a column published Friday that the paper will be shedding some pages and combining some sections in an attempt to cut costs.

We’re combining the Metro & Iowa and Business sections into one. You’ll find Health inside IowaLife on Wednesday. The comics, the puzzles, Dear Abby and the TV grid are moving into Datebook on Thursdays. We will no longer publish Saturday stock listings, but we’ll still feature stocks of Iowa interest. We will no longer publish classified sections on Mondays or Tuesdays, although our online Marketplace is always active, 24/7.

The page cuts come just a few days after it was announced that all newspaper employees of Gannett Co. Inc., the Register’s parent company, will have to take unpaid week-long furloughs during the first quarter of this year, a move the company said it is using to avoid further layoffs.

Several sources inside the Register’s newsroom said employees have been informed they must have their furlough scheduled by Monday.

The news follows earlier reports that the company’s average share value has fallen below $1 per share over the last month, which means it could be de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange.

The threat of de-listing comes as the beleaguered publisher struggles to avoid defaulting on its debt – including a $306 million payment set to come due in April.

There have been no announcments of job cuts at any of Lee’s Iowa papers.