40 % to be laid off

Well, the other shoe did drop and we were told Wednesday (the 2nd) that 40 percent of our 370-person workforce would be laid off. That means about 170 people. All sorts of guessing is going on right now as to which sections (entertainment? metro? sports?) will get the ax and whether those of us who work on national desk are truly safer. Providentially, our main competition ran a front-page story on the layoffs and the last thing the president of our company said is he wants to keep the religion/values reporting. So *my* job seems secure although technically we have all been laid off. Then 60% will be told they are retained, although the conditions they will continue to work under might be quite different. Which is what a lot of us are also wondering about.
Anyway, the first wave of people who will have to go will start in about two weeks, we're told, JUST before Christmas. Isn't the timing lovely? So of course all of us are wondering how much to spend for Christmas, whether that bathroom remodel we'd planned for January will have to be scrapped; that sort of thing. Many people in the newsroom are quite depressed and angry at the recent revelations of some of the obscenely high salaries that the higher-ups in my organization were getting while the rest of us have been scraping along. It's been a real morale killer.
But at this point all of us are simply glad to have work - and health insurance - which puts us in a better place than where many Americans are at this point.