Trinity Mirror cuts 1,200 jobs in 14 months

Trinity Mirror has made 1,200 people redundant and closed 27 newspaper titles since the start of last year, the company said today.

The national and regional newspaper publisher was forced to close 27 titles over the course of last year and sell another four newspapers, and has not been able to rule out the possibility of more closures, due to the economic downturn.

The news comes just days after Trinity announced 70 more redundancies across editorial departments at its Glasgow-based Scottish newspapers, including the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail (see Trinity Mirror set to make 70 redundancies).

Sly Bailey, Trinity’s chief executive, said the 1,200 jobs cuts – which represent around 13% of the company’s total workforce at the start of last year – did not include the further 70 redundancies in Scotland.

The publisher’s finance director, Vijay Vaghela, confirmed that Trinity had shed between 900 and 950 full-time positions in the past 14 months, bringing staffing levels down to around 7,000 people.

The company has axed thousands of jobs in recent years, though some cuts are attributed to the closures of titles such as the Racing Post.

The latest round of job cuts are part of a broader company-wide drive to reduce costs across the whole business, which saw cuts of around £30 million last year and hopes to see a further £25 million in savings this year.

Bailey refused to confirm whether more job cuts would be necessary or whether more closures would occur – “We do everything we can to continue the publication of our titles,” she said.

Trinity is not the only publisher to reduce staffing levels as a result of the current economic climate – regional newspaper group Johnston Press lost over 1,000 people in 2008 and is also down to just over 7,000 staff in total.