The Charlotte Observer will offer voluntary buyouts to a certain number of employees, seeking to trim staff as the company grapples with a decline in advertising revenue, executives at the newspaper said Monday.
The Observer also plans to cut 13 part-time telemarketing positions and offer those employees severance packages, publisher Ann Caulkins said.
Caulkins declined to say how many employees are eligible for buyouts. She said she expects 25 to 35 people to eventually be given buyouts, based on similar programs at other newspapers owned by The McClatchy Co., the Observer's parent company.
"We regret that we must say goodbye to some trusted and valued colleagues," Caulkins said in a note to employees.
"But for the long-term future of the company," she added, "it is important that we respond to current market conditions."
The moves are expected to cut the company's work force by less than 5 percent, Caulkins said. After hiring freezes and attrition in recent years, the Observer has fewer than 1,200 employees, she said.
Since October, the Observer has frozen hiring except for "necessary, revenue-producing positions," Caulkins said. The company also cut costs by reducing the days of publication for some regional sections and trimming pages in its TV Book, she said.
Those actions came in response to a drop-off in advertising -- particularly real estate ads and job listings.
California-based McClatchy, which owns 30 daily newspapers, reported a 15 percent drop in ad revenues and a 6 percent slide in circulation revenues in the first quarter from a year ago. Overall, McClatchy lost $849,000 in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $9 million the previous year.
The Observer also eliminated jobs this year by outsourcing ad production positions to the Philippines. While earlier moves helped, Caulkins said, they haven't been enough.
"We knew we had to take the next step," she said of the buyouts.
McClatchy also owns The News & Observer of Raleigh, which announced its own employee buyout program last month.
In the newsroom Monday morning, editor Rick Thames told employees that regional and neighborhood sections will be restructured, requiring fewer staffers. Buyouts also will be offered to employees with certain expertise that, while valuable, could be covered in other ways, he said.
Thames stressed that the program is voluntary. "We deeply value every single person working in this newsroom," he said, adding, "Every buyout offer is a proposal, not a done deal."
The amount of each buyout will depend on years of service, Thames said, up to a maximum of 26 weeks of pay. In most cases, he said, employees who accept buyouts will work their last day May 30.
