In an effort to further cut costs in its regional UK newspaper division, Newsquest North-East will cut 17 editorial jobs, close five district offices and freeze workers' pay by January 1, Media Guardian reported Friday.

Staff will be made redundant at three of the Gannett-owned Newsquest titles: the Northern Echo, Darlington & Stockton Times series and free Advertiser series. Employees were notified of the cuts at about noon Friday.

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Trinity Mirror will implement a company-wide pay freeze, the Times Online reported Wednesday. Chief Executive Sly Bailey also announced that no bonuses will be given for 2008, as the publisher’s profit objectives were not achieved.

However, the UK publishing group plans to launch a “special 2009 incentive scheme” that entitles all workers to receive a bonus of up to £1,000, Bailey added.

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Six Apart, the blogging company that created Movable Type and TypePad, has now created the TypePad Journalist Bailout Program, designed to help “recently-laid-off or fearful-of-layoffs” journalists, the company announced on its TypePad Web site.

Although nothing can replace a full-time job with benefits, the programme helps journalists set up their own sites, in which they receive a free TypePad Pro blog account, are enrolled in the Six Apart Media advertising programme, their sites are promoted on Blogs.com, and more, such as a programme to help drive traffic to their sites.

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The Independent and Independent on Sunday will lay off up to a quarter of journalism staffers as the UK arm of Independent News & Media aims save £10 million, the company announced Tuesday, the Financial Times reported. A total of 90 out of 424 editorial workers will lose their jobs.

INM has been struggling with a simultaneous downturn in advertising and circulation, all while a possible recession looms on the horizon. The FT reported that analysts estimate the two titles are losing as much as £10 million per year.

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Milan, a French press group for youth, announced Friday that by the end of December, 32 full-time positions will be cut and numerous publications halted or merged within the publishing firm, AFP reported.

The group will also stop publishing 34 supplementary magazines as well as a fortnightly news magazine Les Clés de L’actualité and its youth-oriented counterpart.

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Advance Publications will downsize staff at its eight newspapers in Michigan, United States, the Michigan Business Review reported Thursday. The publishers reported that the step is a response to the economic situation.

Newspapers to face buyouts and consolidations include The Ann Arbor News, The Grand Rapids Press, The Flint Journal, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, The Bay City Times, Muskegon Chronicle and The Saginaw News.

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UK newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror and its flagship title the Daily Mirror warned that more job cuts may be inevitable as new measures are taken to lower costs amid a turbulent economy, The Independent reported Thursday.

So far, the regional publisher has closed 28 local titles just this year, 11 of which, including the Derby Trader and Formby Times, were shuttered in the four months leading up to October 26. The publisher has stepped up its target for cutting costs by £5 million, to £25 million total, and will cut an additional £20 million, minimum, in yearly costs next year.

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The Kansas City Star will lay off 50 employees, an executive announced Monday, the Kansas City Business Journal reported. The Star is owned by McClatchy Co., the third largest newspaper publisher in the United States.

This job reduction came after The Star’s layoff of about 30 employees Sept. 17, and was in addition to roughly many “who had accepted the newspaper’s most recent early-buyout offer,” publisher Mark Zieman stated in an internal e-mail.

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The world’s largest international newspaper, Metro International SA, announced that it will cut its overall workforce in Denmark by 20 percent to 25 percent, due to the current global economic downturn, Metro announced in a press release Monday.

Metro's two Danish titles are MetroXpress and 24 Timer. The precise number of redundancies will be decided after Metro negotiates with the Danish Union at the end of the month.

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Gannett Co. Inc. announced late last month it would lay off another 10 percent of employees in its local newspapers division in early December. This came after a 3 percent cut in August.

Initially, Gannett said all job cuts would be involuntary, BusinessWeek reported at the time. Now, however, the company has told employees they can apply for voluntary buyouts, according to memos e-mailed to employees.

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The Scottish office of the Daily Mirror, currently comprising four staffers, will be axed to become a single "district reporter" post, All Media Scotland reported.

Publisher Trinity Mirror announced Tuesday in a statement that a total of 11 proposed job redundancies are being discussed across the United Kingdom and their representative body, the British Association of Journalists. The move is “part of the ongoing review of the Daily Mirror's editorial structure,” the publisher stated.

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Management at the Belfast Telegraph and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) are discussing a possible change in shift patterns for employees at the paper in which all editorial staff would begin working on Sundays, The Sunday Business Post reported. The proposals were strongly opposed during the union meeting.

The newspaper's management is also in separate talks with the Unite trade union about voluntary redundancies for production and clerical staff.

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The “prestigious” Zurich-based daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) announced Tuesday that it will be laying off tens of employees as a response to the economic difficulties hitting the advertising industry, AFP reported Tuesday.

The job cuts at the German-language newspaper will be mainly “natural” and will include NZZ workers who intend to retire. The title said that the layoffs cannot be avoided.

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In a move to restructure its operations amid unstable economic conditions, magazine publisher Time Inc. announced it will lay off up to 6 percent of staff, the Guardian reported Wednesday. Although none of its publications are expected to shut down, between 300 and 600 positions may be cut back.

“Industry conditions have been challenging due to the financial crisis, which has produced sharp decreases in advertising spending. This is expected to continue through most of 2009,” Time Inc. Chief Executive Ann Moore stated in a memo.

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The Los Angeles Times will lay off 10 percent of its newsroom staff, or 75 employees, as financial turmoil continues to haunt the entire industry, The Times announced Tuesday.

This is the newspaper’s third round of newsroom layoffs this year, and is part of a 200-employee reduction that started last week.

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