The Guardian has announced a programme of redundancies as it struggles with a sharp decline in advertising.
Katharine Viner sent an email on Thursday to the staff outlining plans to make a “small amount of voluntary redundancies”, as they seek to reduce costs.
The note said that “the advertising recession and the challenging market conditions have a negative impact on all media, including the Guardian”.
The email stated that The Guardian is now 60% funded by its readers, through donations and sales. This reduces its dependence on advertising and sales at newsstands.
It said that the company still had to take “difficult budget decisions” after warning of the advertising slump driving the business to a £39m deficit in 2023.
The note stated that “We have tried to protect editorial budgets wherever possible but, after careful reflection, we have decided to launch a limited voluntary redundancy program within the UK Editorial Department.”
Ms Viner said: “Overall, we are in a stronger position than during the previous downturn. We have a successful and well-established digital reader revenue stream.
This is a great start, but we still have a lot of work to do before our business is truly globalized, digitally-first and confidently sustainable.
Any employee of the UK editorial department, who has worked on a fixed-term or permanent contract for atleast two years, is eligible to apply for this program.
This will not affect its journalists in Australia or the United States.
In March , staff were informed of the looming loss of jobs as part of cost-cutting measures that have seen budgets cut across the group.
Since completing its three-year turnaround in 2019, The Guardian’s headcount has increased dramatically.
Staff costs have increased by over £30m since 2019. The company has employed 1,014 journalists in the last year, compared to 860 in 2019.
The newspaper is also locked in a pay dispute with unions.
The company offered a £2,000 increase in salary to all employees, along with a 1pc raise for 2024. This represents an average salary increase of 3.7pc.
The National Union of Journalists and Unite, however, have rejected the offer.
Guardian spokesperson said: “We are targeting cost savings this year of about 4-5pc through a variety of initiatives, including staff and non-staff expenses.” We are looking to make a small number of editorial redundancies as part of our efforts to position the business in order for revenue growth within a rapidly evolving digital environment.
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