San Jose Merc News hit with 50 cuts* **

The staff reduction was achieved through a combination of layoffs and buyouts.

Fifteen newsroom employees and 19 employees from other parts of the paper were laid off today. Earlier in the week, 16 employees accepted buyout offers, five from the newsroom. The reductions represent a cut of about 5 percent for the newspaper.

Wonder how much money MediaNews is saving in labor costs as a result of its massive state-wide job cuts.

* Update: Cuts to the newsroom shave 10% of its staff

"We're getting so numb to these cuts," said Sylvia Ulloa, president of the San Jose Newspaper Guild. "It hurts and it's bad emotionally, but to be quite honest I don't think this is the last of the cuts this paper is willing to make."
[snip]
Staffers dressed in black and gathered for a noon ceremony Friday to honor laid-off colleagues. "It's like a morgue in there," said Ulloa, who is also a designer at the paper. "The newsroom is really demoralized. A lot of people are angry at the shortsightedness" of the cuts.

** Update 2: 107 took buyouts in BANG-EB, averting involuntary layoffs.