SEATTLE (AP) - The Seattle Times on Monday announced plans to cut its staff by 10 percent through a combination of layoffs and buyouts.

The cuts of 130 to 150 jobs are the third staff reduction announced by the 112-year-old, family owned newspaper this year. The company hinted in an e-mail to staff Monday morning that there could be further cuts as the 2009 budgeting process continues.

The newspaper told its employees that the tough economy and dropping advertising revenue are forcing the layoffs.

"We have made progress in adapting to the loss of advertising revenue. ... Now, we are faced with a highly volatile national economy which has caused a significant cyclical downturn," said company spokeswoman Corey Digiacinto.

Because some of the job cuts will be voluntary buyouts, Digiacinto said it would be unclear for at least another month which departments the job reductions would most affect. A majority of those leaving the company will do so by the end of the calendar year, she said.

"There are a lot of moving pieces right now because of the expression of interest process, so we don't anticipate having all of the specifics before mid- to late December" she said.

In January, The Times said it would cut 86 jobs, mostly by not filling existing openings. In April, it said it was eliminating another 200 jobs, including about 45 newsroom employees.

The company currently has nearly 1,600 full- and part-time employees.

Digiacinto described this round of layoffs as a "relatively small reduction" given the volatile economy, and noted that other newspapers facing the same pressures are making bigger staff cuts.

The Times, the largest daily newspaper in Washington state, is run by the Blethen family, which holds a 50.5 percent stake in the company. The rest is held by McClatchy Co.

In addition to cutting expenses, The Times is trying to decrease its debt, Digiacinto said.

The company has put its three daily newspapers and one weekly in Maine on the market and is trying to sell some property in the neighborhood surrounding its Seattle newspaper office.

"The Blethen family remains committed to local, independent ownership of The Seattle Times," she added.

Newspapers nationwide have resorted to layoffs and slashing budgets as they try to adjust to falling revenue. Many papers have had to deal with falling circulation and sharp reductions in classified advertising.

Last month, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that the combined weekday circulation of 507 newspapers across the country dropped 4.6 percent from a year earlier. The Seattle Times saw average weekday circulation decline 7.7 percent to about 199,000, while the Sunday edition, which bears both The Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer mastheads, fell 9.1 percent to 382,000, the bureau reported.