The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) is laying off some 100 NYT business-side employees and cutting non-union salaries across the board. NYFishbowl has the memo, which also outlines a “temporary” 5 percent salary reduction for all non-union employees at the NYT.  In an attempt at softening the blow, NYT execs say staffers can take an additional 10 personal days off over the next nine months. The memo contains a promise that salaries will return to current levels next year, adding, “Of course, such a decision depends on the state of our business.”

Staci adds: The salary cuts affect all non-union employees across the company—including executive officers—but at varying degrees. The only exception, according to the company, is the International Herald Tribune, which is taking other cost-cutting measures.  NYTCo didn’t mention the layoffs in an SEC filing but said the salary cuts would cover executive officers as well. Effective April 1, the salaries of Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., CEO Janet Robinson and others will drop 5 percent. According to the 2009 proxy, Sulzberger’s base salary for 2008 was $1,087,000, while Robinson’s was $1 million. Sulzberger and Robinson distributed their own company-wide memo.

The salary hits for non-union employees differ by division. From the filing: “The salaries of these employees at the Company’s New York Times Media Group (with the exception of the International Herald Tribune), The Boston Globe, Boston.com and corporate employees at the Company’s New York headquarters will be reduced 5% effective April 1, 2009, through December 31, 2009.  In exchange, these employees, including the Company’s executive officers, will be entitled to 10 additional days off to use before the end of the year.  The salaries of employees of the About Group, Baseline, Regional Media Group, Worcester Telegram & Gazette and certain non-New York-based corporate and other departments will be reduced 2.5%, with five additional days off. The Company made the distinction between the two groups taking into account location and other factors.”

It may sound a tad better—extra vacation days in lieu of salary—but it’s essentially the same furlough concept being implemented by Gannett (NYSE: GCI) and others. One difference: since this will be treated like vacation and the timing can be spread across the year.

Unions: The company is asking the Newspaper Guild to follow suit, as the newsroom memo puts it, “in a spirit of shared sacrifice and as a way to otherwise avoid layoffs in the newsroom.” It’s also working with unions in Boston.

NYT: “The layoffs represent almost 5 percent of the more than 2,000 employees in the business operations of the flagship Times newspaper. It comes on top of other recent downsizing steps by the company, including the layoffs of 27 people in The Times’s advertising department last month, and of about 500 people in January, with the closure of City and Suburban, a newspaper and magazine distribution subsidiary. At the end of 2008, the company had 9,346 employees, down from 10,710 who worked in the same operations two years earlier.”

Photo Credit: omar_chatriwala

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