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The News & Observer is offering voluntary buyouts to 320 employees – the latest effort at cost-cutting at the daily newspaper.
Employees were given word of the voluntary buyouts Wednesday morning, the newspaper reports. Every member of the news staff will be offered a buyout.
In all, the newspaper is offering buyouts to roughly 40 percent of its employees.
According to The N&O, Publisher Orage Quarles III expects a small percentage of the people offered buyouts to take them. By way of comparison, of the 200 people who were offered voluntary buyouts in April, 33 wound up taking the packages and leaving the newspaper.
Like most daily newspapers, The N&O is suffering from an advertising slump fueled by an economic downturn and competition from online ads paydayloans. In addition to the April buyouts, the newspaper also cut 70 jobs in June. Then, in August, parent McClatchy Co. (NYSE: MNI) said it would freeze wages for a year.
The N&O also has shut down its Durham office, moving those workers into the offices of its Orange County bureau in downtown Chapel Hill.