Fairfax Media Ltd., Australia's second-biggest newspaper publisher, will cut about 5 percent of its staffers, or 550 jobs, in order to save AU$50 million (US$43 million) in annual costs, Bloomberg reported.

The reductions will begin in the later half of this year, with a third of the cuts coming from editorial departments, according to the company statement Tuesday.

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McClatchy Co. will offer more buyouts at the Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee in an attempt to deal with plummeting advertising revenue at two of its biggest papers.

Mark Zieman, publisher of the Star, announced the third round of voluntary buyouts in an e-mail to employees Monday, but he did not give a specific number of jobs the company hopes to cut.

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Regional newspapers in the Midlands, United Kingdom are not the only ones to announce staff cuts in the past week. Across the Irish Sea, the Offaly Independent in Tullamore, Ireland is asking employees to re-apply for their positions as well, the Irish Independent reported Tuesday.

New plans call for the Offaly Independent to cut more than half its employees, keeping three of seven.

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Journalists at Trinity Mirror's Midlands newspaper group have called for a strike ballot over the publisher's plans to cut 65 jobs, BBC News reported Sunday.

Staffers at the Birmingham Post and Mail, Sunday Mercury and Coventry Telegraph are also given the choice of voluntary redundancy.

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All 300 editorial employees at Trinity Mirror's newspapers in the Midlands area of the United Kingdom were made redundant, and have been asked to apply for new jobs “as part of radical plans to overhaul the company's publishing operation in the region,” MediaGuardian reported Wednesday.

Staffers in all editorial jobs at the group's regional dailies, including the Birmingham Post, Coventry Telegraph and the Birmingham Mail, as well as about 40 weeklies, were told Wednesday that their jobs will be obsolete, and they will have to apply for new positions. However, there are about 65 fewer jobs than there are employees who have been made redundant.

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Representatives from the UK National Union of Journalists at main publishing centres for Johnston Press have organised a group-wide day of actions that will aim to show just how badly local newspapers are hurting, the NUJ announced on its Web site Monday.

The actions are being taken at the UK's largest regional publishing company due to increasing amounts of redundancies, budget cuts, recruitment freezes and closures of titles and offices across the United Kingdom and Ireland, the announcement stated.

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McClatchy announced Thursday it will freeze employee wages for a year starting Sept. 1, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Publisher Cheryl Dell stated in a memo to employees that the freeze will apply to all McClatchy’s operations, including corporate executives and Internet staff.

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Telegraaf Media Groep will cut at least 425 jobs and other “more drastic” cost reductions, in an attempt to offset low advertising revenue and higher energy and wage costs, Reuters reported Friday.

The Netherlands' largest newspaper publisher announced Friday that due to an impairment charge and low ad revenues, it has recorded a net loss in the first half of €175.5 million. In the first half of 2007, it saw a profit of €39.7 million.

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U.S. newspaper publishing giant Gannett will eliminate 1,000 jobs, about 3 percent of its workforce, according to a memo from the publisher of USA Today, The Washington Post reported Friday.

About 600 of the employees will be laid off, and 400 job cuts will come from attrition. The layoffs are expected to be completed by the end of the month.

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A Durham, North Carolina lawyer sued The News & Observer, to which he is a subscriber, last month in an attempt to get the McClatchy Co. newspaper to stop making staff cuts and reducing news coverage. Now, Keith Hempstead has dropped the lawsuit, after his complaint has been covered by several news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio, saying he has made his point.

Hempstead said he chose to sue the newspaper instead of cancelling his subscription to get the newspaper industry's attention, The N&O reported Monday.

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Employees at the Chinese-language China Times came close to launching a strike last week that would have started Friday, had union members cast five more votes in favour, the Taipei Times reported.

The strike at the China Times, one of the four largest newspapers in Taiwan, would have included printing press workers from all the paper's three printing presses, and would have stopped production. The paper's employees are looking to gain better job security and severance pay for laid-off workers.

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The Honolulu Advertiser will lay off 54 workers, cutting 6.8 percent of its payroll, Editor & Publisher reported Thursday.

The cuts mean the Advertiser is joining “a growing list of newspapers nationwide that have been forced to cut jobs in the wake of a weakening economy and loss of advertising to the Internet,” the newspaper stated in a Thursday article.

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The Argus, a Newsquest title based in Brighton, United Kingdom, plans to cut its two daily editions down to one, and close its weekly Sports Argus newspaper, threatening 10 editorial jobs, Holdthefrontpage.co.uk reported Tuesday.

The newspaper is currently in a 30-day consultation process with employees about the cuts.

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Continuing with a restructure of its commercial operation, News International announced a string of executive moves, Media Guardian reported Tuesday.

The company is merging ad sales teams at the Times Media Group and at News Group Newspapers. The new unit will begin operation in September.

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Free Dutch daily De Pers has spent 60 to 70 percent more than its budget allowed, and will axe eight journalists to cut costs, Newspaper Innovation reported Thursday.

Currently, the newspaper has 51 newsroom staffers.

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