GateHouse Media Inc. is cutting 60 positions at its Massachusetts publications, including The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, The Enterprise of Brockton, and dozens of suburban papers, according to an employee briefed on the plans.
There will be 35 layoffs, and the company is not filling 25 vacant jobs at various papers and departments, said the employee, who requested anonymity because the person is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The cuts represent about 4.6 percent of GateHouse's Massachusetts employment of about 1,300 full-time workers.
Rick Daniels, chief operating officer of GateHouse Media New England, declined to comment. GateHouse Media, based in Fairport, N.Y., publishes more than 100 daily US papers.
Last fall, The Patriot Ledger reduced its staff by 130, after reaching a multiyear agreement with The Boston Globe to print the Ledger and the Brockton daily. These cuts included 21 full-time pressmen and production workers and 109 part-timers who stuffed inserts into papers.
Over the past several years, GateHouse Media went on a buying spree in Massachusetts, acquiring more than 100 daily and weekly papers around Boston.
The latest round of layoffs comes as the newspaper industry continues to struggle with revenue and circulation declines. Tribune Co., facing shrinking revenues, yesterday said it would cut about 500 people in newsrooms and corporate offices, or around 2 percent of the Chicago media company's workforce. These reductions include 100 to 150 jobs at the Los Angeles Times, about 100 jobs at the Chicago Tribune, and about 45 jobs at the Hartford Courant.
Jenn Abelson can be reached at abelson@globe.com.
