The idiom is "skeleton crew" which means the availability of just enough employees to keep the work running.
Explanation:
Idioms are those words or groups of words that suggest or have a meaning which is not deducible from the given word. They are used in expressions which are not literally applicable or which cannot or should not be taken in the literal sense.
In the given sentence, the word 'skeleton crew' is an idiom which suggests that the company suffered a lot, leading to the reduced number of employees. the skeleton crew meant that there are just enough employees or workers to keep the company working. That means that the newspaper is barely manageable, with just the right amount of workers available in the company to do the work needed.
