Journal Sentinel Inc. will cut about 10 percent of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's 1,300 full-time employees due to the slump in ad sales affecting the entire newspaper industry.
The industry has seen hundreds of layoffs as wary advertisers cut back on ads and newspaper costs soar. Half a dozen major newspapers announced layoffs last week totaling about 900 jobs.
And on Wednesday The Tampa Tribune also announced a major cut, of more than one-fifth of its news staff.
It's not clear how many newsroom jobs will be lost at the Journal Sentinel, said Amy Rinard, president of the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild and a reporter at the paper.
It will depend on which employees take buyouts, said Elizabeth Brenner, president and chief operating officer of Journal Communications' publishing group. Layoffs will be done by the end of the year.
Journal Sentinel's stock fell 26 cents, or 5.4 percent, to close at $4.52 Wednesday, and slid to a multi-year low of $4.39 earlier in the session after the announcement of the loss of about 130 jobs. Its shares have ranged from $4.45 to $13.53 in the past 52 weeks.
Employees leaving voluntarily and as the result of targeted cuts will receive cash severance and health care benefits.
The newspaper's ad revenue dropped more than 12 percent between May 2007 and May this year as newsprint and fuel costs have risen.
"Our advertising customers _ especially car dealers, real estate agents, hiring officials, retailers and financial institutions _ have been battered by a perfect storm of deteriorating credit conditions, slowing home sales, contracting company size and higher gas prices," Brenner said.
The cuts are the latest in a string for the paper. Last October, the Journal Sentinel cut about 50 jobs through buyouts, offering severance packages to employees with 10 years or more of service.
By June, the paper was down 107 positions, Brenner has said.
Also last month, the paper said it would stop publishing its free weekly aimed at young adults because the publication, called MKE, wasn't attracting enough ads. MKE workers had been encouraged to apply for jobs open at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Rinard said workers were caught off-guard Wednesday because they did not expect another round of cuts so soon.
"We thought maybe there might be something coming later in the year, but I guess this is a little sooner than we had anticipated," she said.
The cuts come in a year in which the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting by Dave Umhoefer. It was the first time the newspaper received journalism's top honor since Milwaukee's two daily papers were combined in 1995.
Last week, half a dozen newspapers said they would slash payrolls, including deep staff cuts at The Hartford Courant and The Sun in Baltimore _ two Tribune papers _ as well as at The Palm Beach Post and the Daytona Beach-Journal in Florida. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press plan to reduce head count in their joint operations by 7 percent through buyouts. And The Boston Herald will lay off up to 160 employees as it outsources printing operations.
Earlier in June, McClatchy Co., publisher of the Sacramento Bee and other papers, said companywide staff cuts of 10 percent are in the works.
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