In an endeavor to counter the financial difficulties resulting from a plunge in global newspaper advertising revenue, the New York Times (NYT) intending slashing nearly 8 percent of its journalism workforce by laying-off 100 newsroom employees between now and the year-end.

Informing the NYT staff-members about the proposed move, the paper's Executive Editor, Bill Keller, said in his e-mail that the publisher would first offer voluntary redundancy packages to its staff; and later shift to enforced layoffs in case the voluntary redundancy option fails to yield the desired results.

Acknowledging the fact that the remaining NYT employees will face larger workloads, Kelly wrote: "If we do not reach 100 positions through buyouts, we will be forced to go to layoffs. I hope that won't happen, but it might!"

The newspaper, which currently has 1,250 editorial employees vis-à-vis most other papers' nearly 750 journalists, is seeking to reduce its newsroom staff for the second time in slightly over a year - it earlier slashed 100 newsroom jobs in 2008.

The parent company of the paper, New York Times Company, which also owns the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, 15 regional papers and a number of websites, recently posted a $35 million loss for the year's first half, largely because of a fall in both print and online advertising.