March 26 (Bloomberg) -- New York Times Co. and Washington Post Co. are cutting jobs at their flagship newspapers to help cope with declining revenue during the deepening economic recession.

Times Co. said today it eliminated 100 positions and will cut non-union salaries companywide by as much as 5 percent for the rest of the year. Washington Post is seeking an unspecified number of voluntary buyouts.

Publishers’ revenue has plunged as readers seek more news from the Internet, where advertising sales are less lucrative. Four newspaper owners have filed for bankruptcy since December. Times Co., Gannett Co. and others have halted or slashed dividends and are seeking to sell assets to preserve cash.

“It’s not going to end until newspaper economics get better, and that’s not going to happen any time soon,” John Morton, a newspaper analyst and president of Morton Research Inc. in Silver Spring, Maryland, said in an interview. “There’s a deep advertising recession and one has to wonder whether they’re ever going to get it all back.”

Washington Post gained $6.93, or 1.8 percent, to $384.28 at 4:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has dropped 1.5 percent this year. Times Co., down 32 percent this year, gained 41 cents, or 9 percent, to $4.98.

Non-union employees of the New York Times, Boston Globe, their Web sites, and corporate offices -- including Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson and Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. -- will have their pay cut 5 percent and will have 10 additional paid days off, according to a memo and regulatory filing today.

Struggling Economy

Times Co.’s other divisions, including About.com and a regional newspaper group, will reduce salaries for non-union workers by 2.5 percent, with five more paid days off. The publisher will restore salaries next year depending on “the state of our business,” according to the memo.

“The economy is likely to continue struggling throughout this year and possibly longer,” Robinson and Sulzberger said today in the memo to employees announcing the plan.

Job cuts were confined to the business side of the flagship newspaper, according to a separate memo. Times Co. had 9,346 employees at year end, including at least 4,000 union employees, according to the company’s annual report.

Catherine Mathis, a Times Co. spokeswoman, declined to say how much the company expects to save with the salary and job cuts.

‘Reduce Costs’

The Washington Post will lose “substantial money” this year after an “embarrassing” 2008, Chief Executive Officer Donald Graham said in a letter to shareholders released yesterday.

The Post buyout program was announced today in a memo to employees by Publisher Katharine Weymouth. In an interview, Weymouth declined to say how many buyouts the company was targeting and said she wouldn’t rule out future layoffs.

The program “will allow us to reduce costs and gain efficiency while we continue to restructure for the future,” Weymouth said. The majority of the Post’s job cuts should come from production staff, she said.

The Washington-based company is also closing a printing plant in College Park, Maryland, in this year’s second half.

Washington Post’s newspaper division, which includes the Post’s Web site and the Daily Herald of Everett, Washington, swung to an operating loss of $192.7 million last year from a $66.4 million profit in 2007.

Times Co.’s media group posted a $30.3 million loss last year, compared with a $248.6 million profit in 2007. The publisher, controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, is seeking a buyer for its minority stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team and agreed to a $225 million sale-leaseback for its Manhattan headquarters building.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 26, 2009 16:19 EDT