Four on biz desk among layoffs at San Jose Mercury News

At the San Jose Mercury News, four business news desk staffers were among those laid off on Monday, Talking Biz News has confirmed.

They are venture capital reporter Constance Loizos, retail reporter Michele Chandler, workplace reporter Nicole Wong and assistant business editor Steve Zuckerman.

Loizos joined the paper less than one year ago. She previously worked at the Venture Capital Journal and Private Equity Week. She had also freelanced for Barron’s, Inc. and a number of other publications.

Earlier this year, Wong was named one of the 2007 NewsBios 30 Under 30 Award recipients. This select group of journalists showcases up-and-coming business and financial reporters and editors. Wong was also a past Kaiser Media Intern in Health Reporting. She also was one of the paper’s reporters in covering the Hewlett Packard pretexting scandal.

Mercury News business columnist Dean Takahashi wrote on his blog: “I expect they will land jobs in good places, and that many of them will move to pure Internet plays. They now have the motivation to start anew and to evolve as journalists more quickly than the rest of us still putting out a paper.”