NY Times cuts newsroom again, ahead of schedule

The New York Times Co. (NYT) assured its unionized employees in September that the voluntary 5 percent paycut they had agreed to this year would be temporary; their former salaries will be restored on January 1. Now we know where the money to do that will come from.

The Times announced Monday that it will eliminate 100 newsroom positions by the end of this year. Employees will receive buyout offers this week, and will have until early December to decide whether to apply for one. If the paper can't reach the magic number purely through buyouts, it will have to resort to layoffs, as it did in its last round of newsroom cuts in early 2008, which reduced the newsroom headcount from more than 1,330 to about 1,250.