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Redundancies sought at Midlands title

A raft of fresh redundancies at the Birmingham Post has been announced by parent company Trinity Mirror.

The paper is set to lose the roles of deputy editor, head of news, head of content, head of features, head of business, and two London-based posts of city correspondent and political correspondent.

Some of the staff under threat of losing their jobs have been with the Post for 20 years.

As well as nine redundancies a number of vacant roles will not now be filled.

The changes come at the same time as a cut in pagination, from 220 to 180 – a drop which will result in some roles becoming surplus to the paper’s needs.

The changes are part of the 550 job cuts announced by Trinity Mirror earlier this year in a bid to shave £25m a year off company costs.

A company spokeswoman said: “Nine editorial jobs will be made redundant. We will seek to achieve these through voluntary redundancy.

“They are part of a restructure and streamlining of the editorial department the aim of which is to increaseperformance and efficiency within the function. There is a need to rightsize in line with the paper’s sales and revenue performance.

“We are, however, very confident that there will be no effect on our ability to produce high quality newspapers.”

She said a month-long consultation was now under way to work out the way forward.

The news comes within two months of the appointment of the Post’s new editor, Fiona Alexander, a former editor of its sister paper, the Sunday Mercury.

Trinity’s Birmingham business, which includes the Evening Mail and Sunday Mercury, shed 20 staff in a redundancy programme in May, during which eight new jobs were created.

National Union of Journalists’ Birmingham father of chapel Chris Morley is preparing to become involved in the consultation talks with management.

  • There are currently 10 vacancies within the operating structure, seven of which will not be filled. It is hoped the remaining three roles can be filled from within, thereby reducing the overall number of redundancies.
    In addition, the company will be introducing one new role of assistant editor (content).

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