Around 70 newspaper staff in the West Midlands are facing the prospect of compulsory redundancy after a proposal for voluntary job losses failed to get enough takers.

Last October, the Midlands News Association announced plans to shed 135 jobs in a major restructuring operation.

But the company, publishers of the Express and Star and Shropshire Star, failed to achieve its target of voluntary redundancies, with less than 50 staff opting to leave.

Now, in what would be by far the biggest single batch of compulsory job losses at any one company since the start of the current downturn, it is looking to axe up to 70 posts across all departments.

The new plans were revealed by managing director Alan Harris at a meeting of the company’s staff council earlier this week.

It is not clear at this stage how many journalists’ jobs will be affected.

The company has confirmed the proposal, but says it is not making any further statement beyond the one issued in October, which made clear that compsulory redundancies were an option.

It said: “It is hoped staff savings can be achieved through voluntary redundancies across the group but some compulsory redundancies may be necessary to achieve an overall cost reduction of £3m a year.”

National Union of Journalists’ father of chapel John Corser, the editioral staff council representative, informed colleagues of the announcement in an email.

He said: “The managing director announced that there will have to be compulsory redundancies. The process of finding voluntary redundancies came up short.

“Only 16 were found at Wolverhampton and 24 in Shropshire. The company is now looking to find 60 to 70 more across the group.”

The process of selecting people for compulosry redundancies has already begun, with each head of department carrying out a review over the next two weeks.

It is expected to be completed by 23 February, the next time the staff council is due to meet.

Said one reporter: “This is very sad news but it is not unexpected.

“The E&S is still a big concern in the newspaper industry but if our editors don’t start thinking about what our readers actually want then there will be more jobs going in the future.

“We have brilliant staff and hard working reporters but they are not free to do the job they love.

“With the resources we have it is a real missed opportunity that the E&S isn’t leading the industry through these tough times instead of following the pack.”

Comments

Interested Observer (15/01/2009 07:46:49)
For all who lose their jobs, my deepest sympathies. For you and everyone else left behind, make sure you let youngsters with aspirations of a career in the media know how awful it is – the long hours and unpaid overtime, the destruction of family life, the idiots in charge, the cost-cutting, the constant threats of redundancy (even before the credit crunch, which has become a convenient scapegoat for these incompetent idiots who run newspapers) and the misery of watching products that could be brilliant churned out and filled with PR pap.
Shame on all you shortsighted chief executives.

Miss Cynical (15/01/2009 08:49:55)
Yes, but the ironic thing is… The journalists will end up being the ones who write the press releases! So, unlike the irrelevant, non-local content in ‘101 press releases’, the PR will be relevant and written by people who understand what is and is not newsworthy.
The only difference is they will get paid fairly for it!
I guess the remaining journalists will have a duty to find the juicy stories – but in my experience, only a handful go the extra mile to do this anyway. Many rely on press releases and diary events. Sad, but true.

Onlooker (15/01/2009 10:07:27)
As someone who has recently been made redundant by another newspaper, I urge young journalists to be brave and quit before they are too old to build another career. This industry is on its knees and even when the economic upturn happens, many newspapers will have been so weakened by the cuts that revival will be impossible. The government should reduce the number of journalism courses at universities. It is cruel and a waste of money to train enthusiastic kids for a career in which they are most unlikely to get a job.

Paw Print (15/01/2009 10:58:21)
Yup, It’s all over folks. Fat cats will get rich on low paid PR recyclers…
plus ca change

Paw Print (15/01/2009 10:58:22)
Yup, It’s all over folks. Fat cats will get rich on low paid PR recyclers…
plus ca change

F. Johnston (15/01/2009 11:03:49)
Onlooker has a point about university courses. These are extremely popular and the universities are exploiting that to make money. The employers then exploit the ‘graduates’ they turn out to drive down wages, which impacts on the quality of the journalism (see the recent debate elsewhere on this website). Once upon a time the NCTJ only took on roughly as many trainees per year as the industry was likely to need in the following year – on the course I did 400 people applied for 30 places all of whom got jobs. Now we’re awash with people so desperate to get into the industry that they are prepared to work for peanuts.

R Jones (15/01/2009 11:08:13)
It is scandalous that so many universities are still offering media degree courses. The lecturers must by now know that it is a rapidly-shrinking industry and most of those who are in it have poorly-paid jobs. Money is being taken off entrants with no chance of a job at the end of the three years, when they could be studying for something which can pay a liveable wage.
What is the NUJ doing to provide advice to its members on tangible avenues to alternative careers, or is it hoping to tackle the industry’s problems by holding days of action and throwing insults at managing directors who couldn’t care less about anything they say?

Interesting (15/01/2009 11:18:06)
It is interesting that this story is based almost entirely around the E&S with not much about the Shropshire Star. There is no comment from the Shropshire NUJ chapel and it should be pointed out there are concerns in Shropshire that virtually all the management of the new company are based in Wolverhampton

stewart perkins (15/01/2009 11:50:15)
This is sad news for everyone who has ever been associated with the Express and Star, which is historically one of the powerhouses of the provincial sector. The group used to be hugely profitable, and the management’s creditable mantra was that they invested in journalists because the product was what drove the paper’s astonishing circulation figures. Times and conditions have changed,
of course, but the implications of this news are still worrying for everyone. If I was a journalist I would certainly want to be a member of the NUJ to ensure that negotiations with management were co-ordinated on as wide a basis as possible. Good luck to my colleagues and to everyone else at the paper in these trying circumstances.

TMH (15/01/2009 15:46:16)
Will the last person to leave journalism please turn out the lights.

Fed up journo (15/01/2009 17:28:00)
Can everyone reading this please answer this question – if you have been made redundant or are otherwise just fed up with the industry, what are your future career plans? I have been looking for a senior reporter job for months and finally was offered one on a paper two weeks ago. I know deep down that I’ll probably have to look for another career.

Interested Observer (15/01/2009 19:47:32)
To Fed Up Journo. I’ve been doing this for 16 years, and there’s been talk of redundancies for almost all of that time. I’m freelance at the moment, but more out of necessity than invention. I’m looking at the civil service and council media jobs. It may not be as much fun – despite all the constant job-cut misery, I still love talking to people and writing their stories – but you have to pay the bills and put food on the table.

< p>Martin (16/01/2009 10:30:36)
And the company has scrapped their flagship glossy 24/7 only days after changing it from a free to a paid for publication.
The problem with the Shropshire Star was that they could never decide if it was a local paper or a national daily. As a result it never really established a proper identity for itself.
Sad that inept senior management have wrecked a potentially great product. I mean, you’d have to be a serious duffer to wreck a paper that covered all of Shropshire and mid-Wales.
Rumours that they are even considering closing down the Shropshire Star are coming from the same sources who predicted the merger of management at Wolverhampton well before the company announced that move.
I feel sorry for the staff who have been badly let down.

Geoff Perfitt (16/01/2009 17:10:55)
All the job losses listed daily on this website make sad, sad reading. Luckily, me and thousands of others knew the good times in journalism till the last few years as the writing began appearing on the wall. It’s of course got worse in the last year. I retired two years ago after 40 years knocking about all over the place on papers and they were good, golden years. A million memories. My advice to any youngster thinking of getting into journalism now would be to really think hard. They’ll almost certainly do better in orher professions. Local paper circulations were already dipping before this recession. In another 20 to 40 years there will be few papers left.

Geoff Perfitt (17/01/2009 17:32:13)
Local papers are on the decline, now accelerated by the crunch. The nationals won’t fare much better either. Their quality has been badly hit. I’m glad that in 40 years in journalism I had happy, much less restricted and better staffed, times. Golden years with a million memories. Sadly, I’d tell any youngster thinking of starting out in journalism to think hard. Low pay, shaky job security and ruled by accountants.

TeddyRuxpinUK (19/01/2009 10:58:16)
R Jones – you say University lecturers should feel bad about sending people into the industry without training. What we actually do is train them to be a new breed of journalist who can make a living without the support and background of a large media business. Self-sufficient journalists are already springing up and earning a living in many of the patches neglected by the big businesses.

raj (19/01/2009 15:01:06)
We will be editing your newspapers here in Kerala. We are cheap cheap and educated. We give value to the blue Ferrari and the golden Monacho apartment