Trinity Mulling Job Cuts Across Portfolio

Newspaper giant Trinity Mirror has warned employees that it may be forced to make redundancies across its national and regional portfolio.

The company, Britain’s largest newspaper publisher, said that concerns over advertising revenues may lead to job losses, with an internal memo explaining: “All media owners are currently experiencing tough trading conditions due to the slowdown in advertising markets.”

The note continued: “We are reviewing a number of possible actions to support our business, which may include redundancies.”

Today’s Financial Times speculated that the reduction in staff could be as much as 5-7%, quoting figures from union members. Trinity currently employs over 11,000 employees, meaning that if union speculation is correct, 770 employees could be forced to leave the company’s five national newspapers and 240 local titles.

Earlier this year Trinity published interim results revealing an increase in group revenue of 1.2% during the first six months of 2005, despite contending with a difficult advertising market.

The publisher claimed the results showed it was on track to achieve a £250 million return of capital over three years, with £32.5 million expended on share buy-back over the last six months.

Speaking at the time, Sly Bailey, chief executive of Trinity Mirror said: “We have delivered a satisfactory performance, despite the current trading environment. I believe that this demonstrates that we have stabilised and revitalised the business to achieve sustainable improvements in performance. Having stabilised the core business, we remain fully focused on growth.”

Trinity Mirror: 020 7293 3000www.trinitymirror.com