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Jun 17, 2008 9:29 am US/Central
Star-Telegram To Cut 130 Jobs
McClatchy Slashes 1,400 Jobs In Cost-Cutting Drive
FORT WORTH (AP) ―
McClatchy Co., the No. 3 newspaper company in the country, said Monday it is slashing 1,400 jobs in the latest effort to cut costs amid rapidly dwindling advertising revenues. The cuts represent about 10 percent of the company's work force.
McClatchy, which publishes 30 daily newspapers including The Miami Herald and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, also reported a 15.4 percent decline in advertising revenues in the first five months of the year on Monday.
The cuts at McClatchy come amid a broad retrenchment in the U.S. newspaper industry as the economic downturn combined with competition for classified advertising from online rivals like Craigslist has resulted in a steep slump in advertising revenues.
Many other newspaper publishers have also announced job cuts and layoffs in recent months, but McClatchy's companywide cost-cutting drive marked an unusually broad and deep effort to contain costs.
McClatchy spokeswoman Elaine Lintecum said the cuts would be spread throughout the company and would come through a combination of voluntary departures, layoffs and attrition. McClatchy has not historically used widespread layoffs to control staff size, relying instead on attrition, outsourcing and limited job cuts.
The paper hit the hardest is Miami, where 250 jobs or 17 percent of its staff will be cut. At the Star-Telegram in Fort Worth, 130 jobs -- about 10 percent of its employees -- were affected in almost every department, including news, advertising, circulation and the press operation, said publisher Gary Wortel.
McClatchy, which is still working to reduce debt from its $4 billion purchase of Knight Ridder in 2006, said it has already reduced head count by 13 percent from the end of 2006 through April of this year.
McClatchy said the decisions about where the size and form of the job cuts will differ by location in the company. McClatchy has seen the worst declines in advertising in its papers in Florida and California, where the slump in the housing market has been most severe.
The company's newspapers in Florida posted advertising declines of 22.2 percent in the year to date through May, and 22.6 percent in California, the company said in its monthly statistical report.
McClatchy said the staff cuts would save $70 million a year, part of a program to reduce overall expenses by $95 million to $100 million. It didn't specify where the other cuts would come from.
McClatchy's shares fell 11 cents to $8.04 Monday, close to the bottom end of their 52-week range of $7.51 to $28.73.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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