What If You Offered Buyouts and Everybody Came?

This appears to be the problem at the Newark Star-Ledger. Just days after the paper avoided a sale by striking a deal with the drivers union, its management has a new issue: too many buyout volunteers.

According to Keith Kelly, 409 employees said they would go in exchange for a year’s salary, 179 more than the maximum number the company said it would offer.

Publisher George Arwady addressed the situation in a memo to staffers:

“Now we must undertake the difficult task of deciding which applications will be accepted or rejected, and which remaining employees might be transferred to new jobs. This will not be a quick process, because we find ourselves with far more applicants than the 230 we would accept without rejecting any applications.”

Decisions will come by the end of the month.

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