N&O parent company to freeze wages for one year

The McClatchy Co., the newspaper publisher that owns The News & Observer and other daily newspapers across the country, will freeze wages for a year to hold down costs.

The freeze will run from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31, 2009, N&O Publisher Orage Quarles III wrote in an e-mail message to employees today.

“The News & Observer continues to manage through an economic downturn that is having an unprecedented negative effect on revenues, and therefore, our financial health,” he wrote. “While we have taken many steps to reorganize and streamline operations to respond to changing business models and these economic challenges, we need to do more to control expenses.”

In June, the N&O announced it would cut its work force by 8 percent, or 70 people. That move was part of larger layoffs at Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy, which owns 30 daily newspapers nationwide and announced 1,400 job cuts across the company.

The cuts come as the newspaper industry struggles with slowing ad sales amid a national economic slump and as advertisers shift to the Internet. After the recent layoffs, the N&O employs about 800.

The salary freeze at the N&O doesn’t affect salary increases related to promotions or minimum wage adjustments, Quarles wrote.

“We know this freeze comes at a time when the economy is putting stress on your personal expenses and when you are working hard to adapt to our changing business model,” he wrote. “We are confident that all of the efforts and cost control measures being made will result in a far more stable and financially healthy company in the future.”