Last week, BuzzFeed, the digital news site known for quizzes and viral news, laid off 43 of approximately 250 journalists, including all seven members of the company’s national news desk, national security team, two health journalists, all but two entertainment journalists and all but one who covers LGBTQ. So far, there have been no cuts to technology, politics or investigations, reports The New York Times, but the cuts aren’t over yet.

The layoffs are part of BuzzFeed’s planned overall workforce reductions of 15 percent to cut costs and to help the company hit profitability. These cuts represent about 3.3 percent of the company’s total workforce of 1,300. Staff were told about the cuts in an email from BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti. More cuts, totaling more than 200 employees, will continue this week.

A group calling itself the BuzzFeed News Staff Council, staffers who hope to open up communication between news employees and BuzzFeed leadership, took to Medium to address Peretti, Lenke Taylor, chief people officer, and Ben Smith, editor-in-chief, to urge them to pay out earned paid time off (PTO) to laid off employees.

“Every aspect of the way that these layoffs have been handled so far?-?from communication to execution to aftermath?-?has been deeply upsetting and disturbing, and it will take a long time to repair the damage that has been done to our trust in this company. But there’s one thing you can do right now to help the employees who are losing their jobs,” wrote the BuzzFeed News Staff Council.

“BuzzFeed is refusing to pay out earned, accrued, and vested paid time off for almost all US employees who have been laid off. They will only pay out PTO to employees in California, where the law requires it. We understand that in other states where BuzzFeed employees have been laid off, state law does not require you to do so. But employers absolutely can pay out PTO?-?and often do. It is a choice, and for a company that has always prided itself on treating its employees well, we unequivocally believe it is the only justifiable choice,” the BuzzFeed News Staff Council said in a January 26 blog post.

“This is paid time that employees accrued by choosing not to take vacation days, and instead do their work at BuzzFeed. Many of the employees who have been laid off had the most difficult jobs in terms of scheduling?-?such as the breaking and curation teams on BuzzFeed News who regularly worked weekends and holidays, or managers who weren’t able to use vacation time because they were expected to be available to their teams. They saved up those days (or weeks) because they were so dedicated to their work, and, in some cases, felt actively discouraged from taking time off. They have as much of a right to those days as anyone else,” the post continued.

“For many people, paying out PTO will be the difference between whether or not bills and student loans will be paid on time and how their families are supported. It is unconscionable that BuzzFeed could justify doing so for some employees and not others in order to serve the company’s bottom line,” said the BuzzFeed News Staff Council.

The blog post was signed by 20 members of the Staff Council and hundreds of employees, including bureau chiefs, managers, writers, reports, IT staff, data scientists, photo editors, project managers and others.

President Donald Trump added his two cents about the BuzzFeed and Huffpost layoffs on Saturday afternoon. Smith added his own retort.

This is not the first round of layoffs for Buzzfeed. In 2017, after failing to meet its revenue goal, the company laid off 100 people, according to The New York Times. In a November interview with The Times, Peretti floated the idea of merging with other like-minded media sites like Vice, Vox Media and Group Nine Media.

Last week, Gannett, HuffPost and Verizon Media Group also announced layoffs. Verizon said it would cut about 7 percent of staff from its media division, or about 800 jobs, Gannett cut dozens of jobs at newspapers around the country, reports CNN Business. HuffPost was part of the Verizon layoffs. In all, CNN Business estimates that about 1,000 media jobs were lost last week.

Insider Take:

This is a tumultuous time to be in the media business, as companies downsize, rightsize and try to adapt to an ever-changing, digital-first media landscape and media outlets are under fire daily about their credibility. Companies like Gannett have adapted to the digital world too slowly, while digital media companies have perhaps scaled too quickly to stay on top of the 24/7 news cycle. It is sad to see companies let employees go en masse, particularly when the layoffs come in waves and with little or no warning.