Weekly newspaper lays off 30

“Economic pressures” are being blamed for the layoff of 30 employees at the Freeport Press Inc., a weekly newspaper in Harrison County, OH.

Owner and President David G. Pilcher Sr. of Dover confirmed Tuesday that the company “has had a recent staff reduction of 30 people as a result of slower than expected sales.”

“This is definitely the result of economic pressures on our customer clients who have been hit with increased paper prices and a loss of advertising revenue,” Pilcher said. “We expect this to be temporary in nature, and we have increased our sales efforts to secure the additional volume to meet our projections. Additional volume would enable us to bring back some of the affected employees in the near first quarter.”

Freeport Press currently employs about 130 people from a 50-mile radius surrounding the village of Freeport in Harrison County.

The commercial heat-set printing company is 127 years old. Its printing presses produce digest, magazine and tabloid publications, catalogs and direct-mail products for customers throughout the eastern half of the United States.\