North County Times Staff to be Slashed by One-Third

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Eighty employees, including 24 newsroom staffers at the Escondido, Calif.-based North County Times ("NCT") are being pink-slipped by U-T San Diego owner Doug Manchester, Poynter.org reports.

NCT, the product of a 1995 newspaper merger, was purchased last month by Manchester from Lee Enterprises. Manchester, a San Diego real estate developer, informed the California Employment Development Department ("EDD") Monday about the pending layoffs, according to the Poynter post.
Last summer, the NCT alerted the EDD that 56 employees, mostly truck drivers and insert machine operators, were being let go.

Manchester acquired U-T San Diego (formerly known as the San Diego Tribune) from private investor Platinum Equity in November 2011, two years after the Beverly Hills investment firm bought the daily from Copley Press.