Star-Ledger announces cuts

George Arwaday, publisher of The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, sent a memo to employees Thursday detailing new pay and benefits cuts at the paper. The entire memo has been posted to Poynter's Romenesko blog.
From the memo:

The first $40,000 of your new combined annualized income will be cut by 5%. If you make more than $40,000, your next $40,000 in income up to $80,000 will be cut by 10%. Any annualized income over $80,000 will be cut by 15%.

In addition, Arwaday told employees that any bonuses they receive will be rolled into their salary and not delivered all at once at the end of the year.
In addition, all employees will now have to pay for 25 percent of their health care coverage. These moves were put in place to help offset a $20 million year-over-year drop in first quarter ad revenue.
To read the memo, click here.

CQ's economics/finance editor becomes training director

Congressional Quarterly's economics and finance editor Jodi Schneider has accepted an offer to become the first Training Director for the outlet. In a memo, editor Mike Riley said her "primary charge will be to help us become a world-class learning news organization, and one of her key goals will be to develop a broad-based program for developing and coaching CQ’s many talented journalists."
Schneider has been a senior trainer throughout the country for Donald W. Reynolds center workshops since 2003. She has made frequent presentations on business reporting, writing and 24-hour coverage. “The fine job Jodi has done as a trainer for us indicates that Congressional Quarterly made a wise choice,” said Andrew Leckey, Reynolds Center director. “She knows business journalism and how to raise the professionalism of those involved in it.”
Schneider tells us: "I'm excited about the opportunity to further CQ's training efforts and to help this talented group of journalists grow in their careers here. And I'm looking forward to developing a CQ training curriculum from the ground up." She also tells us that she won't be assuming her new role until a new economics and finance editor is hired.

This Week's Movers

While the much-talked about BusinessWeek memo, announcing layoffs and a reorganization, is arguably the week's most buzzed job news, it wasn't all bad this week. Here are other changes:

• Caroline Waxler will join MainStreet.com, set to launch in early 2008, as the general manager and editor. A former Forbes reporter, Waxler was also recently the markets editor for the now-defunct Business 2.0. She starts her new role next week.

• Commonwealth Business Media's Peter Tirschwell moves from magazine group vice president to senior advisory. The vice president of business development, Liam Power, will take over Tirschwell's former role. Read more.

• CMP Channel's CRN and VARBusiness made several changes with four promotions and a new hire to gear up their coverage. Andrew Hickey, a TechTarget veteran, was named senior editor, covering infrastructure technologies. Edward F. Moltzen was promoted to Managing Editor Test Center. Moltzen covers systems and printers as well as peripherals and writes "The Chart," a blog about the business aspects of high tech. Jennifer Hagendorf Follet, moved up to Managing Editor Technology. For more moves and the entire release, click here.
  

• And popular tech columnist David Pogue was named a CNBC contributor. Read the earlier post here.

BusinessWeek: layoffs and staff shuffle

As many as a dozen BusinessWeek employees will be laid off as magazine combines it print and digital staff into a one editorial operation, according to a report from Folio.
An internal memo was given to staff on Wednesday by editor Stephen Adler.
Folio points out that the layoffs come as BusinessWeek experiences success. It's readership is up 3 percent and newsstand sales up 25 percent.
To read the full report click here.