PROVIDENCE – Some 100 jobs will be eliminated at the Providence Journal Co., including 18 news and 34 advertising positions, the president of the Providence Journal Unit of the Providence Newspaper Guild confirmed this afternoon.

“It’s very sad, there are some very good people that are going out the door on this,” said John Hill, union chief and a reporter for The Providence Journal, the state’s major daily newspaper, which is owned by Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corp. (NYSE: AHC).

Of the 100 local jobs, 52 are Guild positions, comprising 18 news and 34 advertising personnel. He said their last day of work is scheduled to be March 6.

Hill said the Guild members slated to be laid off include advertising sales representatives, photographers, photo editors and support staff members responsible for “a thousand little things needed to make an office run.”

The union cannot contest the layoffs, according to Hill. “The company has the right to decide how many people they hire,” he said. He called the reductions “Dallas-driven” to create a leaner newspaper because, he said, the union offered concessions such as unpaid furlough days to save jobs, but the company rejected such overtures.

“We have not provided any information to our employees,” Maribel Correa, director of investor relations and corporate communications for A.H. Belo in Dallas, told Providence Business News. But she did not rule out the possibility that word could have leaked to the Guild.

Correa reiterated the parent company’s earlier statement that any job reductions would be completed by the time the first quarter ends on March 31. (Attempts to contact Howard G. Sutton, publisher of the Journal, were not successful.)

The A.H. Belo last week reported a net loss of $62.30 million for 2008 on revenue of $637.3 million (READ MORE), which was an improvement on its 2007 loss of $347.01 million.

The company’s financial results have forced it to take a series of actions to control costs. The latest downsizing plans were announced Jan. 30 in a letter to employees from Robert W. Decherd, chairman, president and CEO of A.H. Belo Corp. (READ MORE)

At the time, the Providence Newspaper Guild – which represents about 400 employees at the Journal – called on Decherd to give back the 140 percent pay raise he was granted in December.

“Such a move would save the company $350,000,” the union said at the time.

When Decherd made the announcement, the company also said that it was suspending its savings-plan match for employees, effective April 1, to save about $5.5 million annually and limit job losses.

At the start of the year, the company eliminated its 2 percent base contribution to employee 401(k) retirement accounts, and “the new change means the company will no longer pay any retirement contributions,” the union added.

In October, A.H. Belo announced it had renegotiated its line of credit and said it was freezing some salaries effective Nov. 1. (READ MORE) Other changes at non-union newspapers in Dallas and Riverside have included the imposition of parking fees and cuts in cell-phone allowances, according to the Providence Newspaper Guild. Both benefits are protected by the collective bargaining agreement in Providence, and therefore cannot be changed without negotiation, the union added.

In September, 22 employees of the Journal – in editorial, advertising and office positions – accepted voluntary buyouts; another 31 news employees lost their jobs the next month in involuntary layoffs. (READ MORE) Those job cuts were part of the elimination of 500 full-time equivalents (FTEs) companywide – or about 14 percent of the work force – that Decherd had announced in July.

A.H. Belo Corp. (NYSE: AHC) owns and operates The Providence Journal, The Dallas Morning News, The Denton Record-Chronicle and The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif., and as well as a variety of specialty publications for the youth and Hispanic markets; the Web sites associated with its publications; and direct-mail and commercial printing businesses. For more information, visit www.AHBelo.com.