Pre-press jobs at two Newsquest sites will go after the company confirmed plans to outsource work to India.

After a consultation period with staff, management told workers that 15 jobs in Brighton and 12 in Swindon would be lost.

Pre-press staff design adverts and check pages before printing but this work will now be contracted out to Express KCS – an American firm with sites in India.

Steve Sibbald, national officer for newspapers from Unite, the union representing the staff, said: "The company is pressing ahead with the move to India and our members are now working their notice.

"Many of them are entitled to 12 weeks because of their length of service.

"They were probably resigned to it before they got the decision.

"They were not expecting the work to go where it did but unfortunately working in the press is very precarious.

"When contracts are up for grabs you expect it to go to the company down the road not to a company 5,000 miles away."

Steve said that there were jobs still expected to be available at the sites involving some element of pre-press work but anyone wishing to stay on would have to reapply for the positions.

Newsquest, owned by American firm Gannett, operates newspapers throughout the UK and publishes 17 dailies and around 300 weekly titles.

No-one from Newsquest was available for comment.

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