Times offers early retirement to staff, could have layoffs
May 28, 2008 at 10:57 am by Wayne GarciaThe other shoe has dropped over on 1st Street South in St. Petersburg; the Times today revealed that it is offering an enhanced early retirement deal to unspecified staffers and could be forced to lay off employees if not enough volunteers come forward:
In a letter to staff, Times editor and chairman Paul Tash said the measures were a response to a “difficult economic climate” that has been especially hard on advertising, the largest source of newspaper revenue. Over the last two years, the Times’ fulltime staff has dropped from more than 1,500 to fewer than 1,300, mostly by attrition.
“We are navigating a period of historic change and challenge,” Tash said. “Getting through this stretch will not be easy, and it will take everyone’s best efforts, but I remain fully confident about our prospects.”
Last week we published a story in which Times Managing Editor Stephen Buckley acknowledged that downsizing was in the future. “It will clearly take a smaller staff to produce a smaller newspaper, across the entire organization,” he told CL, “and we’ve been very open about that within the organization. We will do that as gracefully and carefully as we can.”
Bonus cut: E&P’s “No more fun in the sun,” on the slump at all Florida newspapers.
