Layoff log: Buyout binge on the Bay

The big news comes out of the Bay area, where some 1,300 employees at San Francisco-area newspapers were offered buyouts. The San Jose Mercury News offered packages aimed at shedding nearly 200 non-union employees and also said it would cut an unspecified number of union jobs. Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which includes the Tribune, the Times and 14 other newspapers, offered all 1,100 of its employees the chance to apply for buyouts, raising the question of what it would do if everyone took the offer. On the other hand, that might be a preferable option to staying in business. Employees have to decide by the end of this week.
MetroActive describes the somber mood in the Merc newsroom, which has lost half its staff since 2001. The story quotes the president of the San Jose Newspaper Guild says, “A whole lot [of people] have been looking for something else because they are done. This is not a company that people want to work for.” But where else are you going to go?
The AP quotes a veteran Merc business reporter saying, “We’ve been through this a number of times. You just wonder when it’s all going to end. The problem is nobody knows where the bottom of this is.” Hint: it’s still a long way down. The Merc covers its own gloomy news here.
In nearby Tracy, Calif., the Tracy Press has scaled its frequency back from five times weekly to twice weekly over the last six months and just laid off an unspecified number of staffers. The paper has a free circulation of 9,700. One of the laid-off employees commented, “I’m a victim of three things: the Internet, the real estate mess and the recession.” Management at Tracy’s two other daily newspapers — the San Joaquin Herald and Stockton Record — have also recently announced cost-cutting measures, though this story didn’t specify what they were.