Merry Christmas; you're fired!

The Miami Herald has pink-slipped another 24 full-time employees...just in time for Christmas.

Broward New Times blogger Bob Norman Lisa Rab reports:

The Miami Herald is cutting 24 jobs throughout the company and reducing the hours of workers involved in printing and delivering the paper, publisher David Landsberg announced in an email this morning.

Seven people will lose their jobs in the Herald newsroom: an assigning editor, two copy editors, two designers, a photo editor, and a part-time librarian. El Nuevo Herald will lose one-and-a-half editing positions, according to Herald executive editor Anders Gyllenhaal. The affected employed were notified this morning, Gyllenhaal wrote in a email to the staff.

For a newsroom of 200 staffers, and a media company with about 900 employees, these cuts are not enormous. But they come after two years of painful job hemorrhaging at the Herald and its competitors, the Sun-Sentinel and the Palm Beach Post.

In 2008, the Herald eliminated more than 370 jobs through layoffs and buyouts. This March, 175 more jobs disappeared, followed by 16 more in August."

If there's any good news in all of this it's that no reporters or photographers are included in this round of cuts.

Herald Publisher David Landsberg sees a silver lining. In his memo this morning he wrote, "The move is part of our ongoing effort to ride out this unprecedented period of economic turmoil. While we are seeing some signs of improvement on the horizon, we expect operating conditions to remain challenging through much of 2010."

One Herald staffer sees things a little more realistically, "It's over; this business is finished."

An editor whose department is among those affected says that this is the fourth time in the past year and half that she's been in danger of losing her job.

And another staffer whose job is in jeopardy posted this on her Facebook page:

"In my department, 2 positions are being eliminated. I have the least tenure, so I'm likely out if no other designers step forward for a voluntary buyout. They have until the 14th to opt for one. My last day of work will likely be Jan. 4. As such, I am officially starting my job search today. Hire me. I'm awesome."

In other news, the Circle of Barely Trained Monkeys aka the Miami-Dade County Commission, reminded us yesterday why a strong and viable Miami Herald is essential to this community.

(Over 14,000 U.S. newspaper jobs have disappeared in 2009.)