The New York Times announced today it is looking for 100 more newsroom staffers to resign voluntarily by year's end, The Associated Press reported today. Failing to meet its target through that approach, the newspaper will force the issue through more obligatory layoffs starting in December.

"I won't pretend that these staff cuts will not add to the burdens of journalists whose responsibilities have grown faster than their compensation," wrote Executive Editor Bill Keller in an e-mail to employees this afternoon.

In the past year, The Times has borrowed money, sold assets, and suspended stock dividend payments in order to avoid "the disabling cutbacks that have hit other newsrooms," the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Meanwhile, the further paring of what may yet be the world's largest editorial staff was likened by media analyst, Digital Daily, to death by one thousand paper cuts. This year, reporters bargained for a five percent across-the-board pay cut in order to stave the possibility of job loss, the New York Observer reported in May. The last round of layoffs to hit The Times were conducted in 2008 when 100 employees were also dismissed, the New York Observer reported today.