By: Between 55 and 60 workers at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have volunteered to take buyouts as the paper looks to cut costs.
The cuts represent between 5.5 percent and 6 percent of the newspaper's total employees. Sara L. Wilkins, a spokeswoman for Journal Sentinel Inc., said the company was still talking with the affected employees and could not say how many newsroom jobs would be lost.
The publisher of the state's largest newspaper had expected 35 to 50 people to accept the buyouts when the program was announced in early October.
It had warned that if too few employees took the voluntary buyouts, some could be forced and severance pay and benefits packages would not be as big.
Full-time employees with 10 years or more service were eligible for the package, which includes severance pay and health care benefits.
The buyouts will be effective Nov. 15. Employees had until Oct. 26 to decide. The buyouts will result in a fourth quarter charge of $3 million to $3.3 million, the company said. But they will mean savings of between $3.9 million and $4.3 million annually starting in 2008.
Job reductions will be felt in all departments, Elizabeth Brenner, president and chief operating officer of parent company Journal Communication Inc.'s publishing group, said in a news release. She had said when the cuts were announced that payroll was the company's largest expense and it had to cut costs to survive in the industry, which is seeing falling ad revenues and circulation.
``We thank our valued colleagues for their many contributions over the years and wish them well in their future endeavors,'' she said.
The Journal Sentinel has more than 1,000 workers with 260 people in the newsroom.
It is owned by Journal Communications Inc. and published by Journal Sentinel Inc.
Journal Communications fell 40 cents, or 4.66 percent, to $8.18 late Wednesday.
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