• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 1, 2014

The New York Times Co. will cut roughly 100 jobs from the newsroom of its flagship newspaper, equal to 7.5% of the total 1,330 editorial staff, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Mark Thompson announced Wednesday morning. The company will first offer buyouts to staff, but will resort to layoffs if necessary. The company is also closing one of its new mobile apps, NYT Opinion, because it failed to gain sufficient traction with subscribers, the executives said.

The announcements were made in an internal memorandum, which read in part: “The job losses are necessary to control our costs and to allow us to continue to invest in the digital future of The New York Times, but we know that they will be painful both for the individuals affected and for their colleagues.”

Separately, NYT chief editor Dean Baquet wrote to employees: “While there are promising signs in digital advertising and digital subscriptions, the print business remains under pressure. And our new products are not achieving the business success we expected, even though they are journalistic sensations. So, regrettably, we are going to have to reduce costs in the newsroom.”

The NYT has not been immune to the same secular downdraft affecting the rest of the newspaper industry, but NYTCO execs have generally taken pains to keep newsroom numbers stable as much as possible by pushing layoffs onto other parts of the company, including the business side and production and distribution.

In 2001, the company had around 13,800 employees, but this shrank to a total 3,529 by the end of 2013 due to layoffs, buyouts, and the divestments of its local newspaper group and the New England division, including The Boston Globe.

By contrast, over the same period, the NYT’s newsroom headcount actually grew from around 1,100 in 2001 to 1,250 in 2013, before increasing again to 1,330 this year. The increase came as new hires, mostly in digital media, more than offset several rounds of layoffs, which cut 100 newsroom jobs in 2008, another 100 in 2009, and 30 in 2013.

After the latest round of cuts, the newsroom will still be about 11% bigger than it was at the beginning of the last decade.