BusinessWeek staffers are last to learn about layoffs

It's never nice to find out you might be getting laid off. But to learn about it by reading it in the paper -- that's tough.

Yet that's exactly what happened at BusinessWeek this week. Employees there have been braced for bad news since June, when McGraw-Hill unveiled plans to "explore strategic options for" -- i.e., sell -- the 80-year-old title. But talk of downsizing was merely speculative until yesterday, when The New York Times reported that BusinessWeek had "announced its fourth round of layoffs in two years" back in January.