TORONTO (April 17) - Torstar Corp., the company that publishes The Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper, said today it will cut about 160 jobs in its newspaper division through voluntary and involuntary staff reductions.
The most shocking part of Torstar's announcement was that they also cut the entire Internet production staff at their flagship paper, the daily Toronto Star.
Torstar called the move a "restructuring" that was brought about by the continued weakness in the newspaper industry. Torstar will take a $21 million charge as part of the restructuring, saying they expect the move will save them $12 million annually in labor costs.
The Star has not announced where the work will be done to produce their Internet presence.
The company wouldn't provide specifics on the job cuts other than to confirm that 122 Star employees who are making "voluntary exits" will be part of the overall "net" reduction in their newspaper division's workforce.
Torstar also owns other Canadian daily newspapers including the Hamilton Spectator. the Guelph Mercury, the Record in Kitchener-Waterloo, the entertainment newspaper Eye Weekly, Real Estate News, and the Metroland newspapers, which includes more than 100 community papers (of which three are dailies).
There are roughly 6,200 employees in Torstar's newspaper division, a spokesperson told Reuters. Torstar is also a book publishing company, owning the Harlequin romance novels, and the Web sites Toronto.com and Workopolis.com.
In other Canadian newspaper news, in a separate development the Montreal Gazette is expected to layoff staff in the newspaper's sales and service departments. Some 40+ jobs are expected to be lost as the Gazette's owners, CanWest Global, moves customer services from staff to a private call center.
