American City Business Journals gives back 5% pay cut from 2009

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

American City Business Journals, the owners of 40 business weekly newspapers across the country, announced internally Thursday that the 5 percent pay cut for employees it made in 2009 will be given back at the beginning of 2011.

Journalists and other staffers will receive the 5 percent back as long as they were on the payroll on June 1, 2009 and have not received a salary increase because of a promotion or another reason since then. The money will be seen in the first paychecks of January.

American City Business Journals, which is based in Charlotte, has approximately 600 journalists working for the company at weekly business papers stretched from Honolulu to Boston. It is one of the largest employers of business journalists in the country.

In a note to employees, CEO Whit Shaw wrote, “While we are pleased that we can take this step, it would be a mistake to assume that the company has recovered completely from the economic challenges that necessitated the reduction in the first place.  With the help of you and your colleagues, we’ve weathered the most difficult part of the storm, remain fundamentally sound and are well positioned for the future.  Please know, however, that I also believe it will take some time for us to return to the financial performance of our best years.”

In the note, Shaw said that the pay cut helped save jobs across the company.

“With the 5 percent reduction being lifted, our next focus will be on addressing the salary and hiring freezes,” added Shaw. “We will review both on an on-going basis, as we have in the past, but would not expect to be in position to do anything before mid-2011 at the earliest. I will continue to review requests to fill open positions on a case-by-case basis.”