The Orange County Register has recently eliminated about 80 customer-service, production and middle-management jobs in a move designed to cut costs and modernize the newspaper’s operations, according to Publisher N. Christian Anderson.
The cuts include 23 customer-service and 50 production workers and several managers, Anderson said. Some of the positions were eliminated through “attrition rather than layoffs,” he said.
“We have to continue to look at positions we don’t need. If we are going to have more bodies, they have to be in the form of more growth,” Anderson said.
The changes come on the heels of layoffs at the rival Los Angeles Times, which cut 170 employees from its Our Times community editions in a cost-cutting effort by new owner Tribune Co. The Times reportedly is looking for other ways to reduce expenses.
Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc., parent of the Register, operates 27 daily newspapers, eight television stations and several magazines and weekly papers, with 2000 revenue estimated to be approximately $750 million.
About a month ago, the Register contracted with Knight Ridder Inc. to handle customer-service operations, displacing 23 workers. The newspaper eliminated about a half-dozen middle-management positions in its printing department and pressroom and has cut its staff by another 50 positions by modernizing its production department, eliminating the need for paste-up artists.
The positions that were eliminated justify the cost of the new production system, resulting in more positions in the newsroom, Anderson said.
“We’ve already seen significant improvement in efficiency and the level of selling,” Freedom CEO Sam Wolgemuth said.
The Register also launched a newspaper last week, Canyon Life, circulating in the Trabuco and Dove canyons in OC. n
