Share Pain, Not The Wealth

Gannet Co., publisher of USA Today, has requested it's employees take an unpaid week off in an effort to avoid layoffs. Other newspapers have used this tactic as well, as have some state and municipal governments. And I get it, sort of, particularly when it comes to government employment. But I just wonder whether or not we've become so obsessed with jobs and preventing unemployment that we've become oblivious to any other economic realities. Maybe in some circumstances it makes sense to spread the pain so to speak, but I certainly wouldn't think that's true in every case. Particularly in an industry that was facing the threat of having to drastically change or die well before the economic downturn began, you would think a newspaper would be thinking beyond preserve every job.