CHARLOTTE - The Charlotte Observer will offer voluntary buyouts to a certain number of employees, seeking to trim staff as the company grapples with a decline in advertising revenue, executives at the newspaper said Monday.

The Observer also plans to cut 13 part-time telemarketing positions and offer those employees severance packages, publisher Ann Caulkins said.

Caulkins declined to say how many employees are eligible for buyouts. She said she expects 25 to 35 people to eventually be given buyouts, based on similar programs at other newspapers owned by The McClatchy Co., the Observer's parent company, including The News & Observer.

"We regret that we must say goodbye to some trusted and valued colleagues," Caulkins said in a note to employees.

"But for the long-term future of the company," she added, "it is important that we respond to current market conditions."

The moves are expected to cut the company's work force by less than 5 percent, Caulkins said. After hiring freezes and attrition in recent years, the Observer has fewer than 1,200 employees, she said.

The news comes a week after The N&O announced its own employee buyout program. The paper has offered buyouts to about 200 workers, but only a small percentage is expected to accept the deal. Those who take the offers will leave The N&O May 23.

Since October, The Charlotte Observer has frozen hiring except for "necessary, revenue-producing positions," Caulkins said. The company also cut costs by reducing the days of publication for some regional sections.

Those actions came in response to a drop-off in advertising -- particularly real estate ads and job listings.

California-based McClatchy, which owns 30 daily newspapers, reported a 15 percent drop in ad revenue and a 6 percent slide in circulation revenue in the first quarter from a year ago. Overall, McClatchy lost $849,000 in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $9 million the previous year.

The Observer also eliminated jobs this year by outsourcing ad production positions to the Philippines.

In the Observer newsroom Monday morning, editor Rick Thames told employees that regional and neighborhood sections will be restructured, requiring fewer staffers. Buyouts also will be offered to employees with certain expertise that, while valuable, could be covered in other ways, he said.

Thames stressed that the program is voluntary. "We deeply value every single person working in this newsroom," he said, adding, "Every buyout offer is a proposal, not a done deal."

The amount of each buyout will depend on years of service, Thames said, ranging from a minimum of 12 weeks of pay to a maximum of 26 weeks. In most cases, he said, employees who accept buyouts will work their last day on May 30.