Sixty-two jobs were cut and 19 vacant positions will not be filled, a Star Media representative confirmed.

The nation's largest newspaper publisher, which owns USA Today and more than 80 other daily U.S. newspapers, laid off 700 employees to cope with what it called an unrelenting advertising slump.

The payroll reductions represent 2 percent of Gannett's 32,600 employees.

The layoffs are Gannett Co.'s biggest in two years and are the latest austerity measures triggered by a steep drop in newspaper advertising that began in 2006.

Gannett's annual revenue has fallen more than $2 billion, or nearly 30 percent, since then.