As speculated, the Associated Press laid-off an undisclosed number of employees Tuesday. According to the AP, the move was done to reach its goal of cutting payroll costs by 10 percent.

The cost cutting has been slowly implemented since last October when the AP announced that it would be lowering its fees for newspapers and broadcasters in a move to help those hit by the recession and the shift of readers to the internet. The projected fall in revenue from the reduced fees will be about 6 percent this year, to $700million.

Even with the drop in fees, many papers have cancelled their subscriptions to the AP to attempt even bigger cost cutting. Tribune Co., which filled for Chapter 11 last December, recently ran a test week in which none of the company's papers used AP stories. However, many papers that gave the AP the required two-year have begun to cancel their cancellation requests.

Over the summer the not-for-profit organization offered early retirement packages to long time employees which were accepted by about 100 people. There has also been a hiring freeze in effect since last year.

The exact number of those laid off was not confirmed by AP spokesman Paul Colford, though it is speculated to be somewhere between 40 and 90 worldwide. Those let go include reporters, editors, photographers, and managers.

As the AP employed approximately 4 000 people at the start of the year, it stands to reason that roughly 400 jobs will be cut by the end of the year; however, the AP has stated that it will "cut jobs held by people with a mix of wages so the cuts wouldn't necessarily translate into a 10 percent reduction in total jobs."

Layoffs at the AP are rare since it relies upon membership fees rather than advertising revenue. Though because of the cuts in fees, as well as the cancelation of the organization must make up for the difference in other ways. It is looking into renegotiating deals with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft as well as cracking down on unlicensed use of its content. It is also looking into including advertising in its revenue model.

Source: Associated Press