Guardian to cut journalists’ jobs as it slides back into heavy losses

Guardian office

The Guardian has launched a redundancy programme as the newspaper grapples with a sharp slowdown in advertising.

Katharine Viner, the left-leaning newspaper’s editor-in-chief, sent an email to staff on Thursday outlining plans for a “small number of voluntary redundancies” as it seeks to cut costs.

The note, seen by The Telegraph, said an “advertising recession and challenging market conditions are impacting negatively on all media companies, including the Guardian”.

The email added that The Guardian was now 60pc funded by its readers through sales and donations, cutting its reliance on advertising and newsstand sales.

However, it said the business still had to make “difficult decisions” over budgets after warning the ad slump would drive the business to a £39m loss in 2023.

“We have sought to protect editorial budgets where possible, but, after careful consideration we have decided to open a limited voluntary redundancy scheme within the UK editorial department,” the note said.

Ms Viner added: “Overall we are in a much stronger position than we were during the last downturn, with a well-established and successful digital reader revenue income stream.

“This is really positive but there is still work to do to make our business digital-first, truly global, confidently sustainable.”

The redundancy program is open to any employee in the UK editorial department who has been employed on a permanent or fixed-term contract for at least two years.

It will not apply to its journalists in the US or Australia.

Staff were warned of looming job losses in March as part of broader cost-cutting that has seen budgets trimmed across the media group.

The Guardian has seen its headcount rise sharply since completing a three-year turnaround plan in 2019.

The company employed 1,014 journalists last year, up from 860 in 2019, while staff costs increased by more than £30m over the same period.

It comes as the newspaper is also locked in a dispute with unions over pay.

The company has offered all staff a £2,000 salary uplift alongside a further 1pc increase for 2024. It said this represented an average pay increase of 3.7pc.

However, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Unite have refused the offer.

A Guardian spokesman said: “We’re targeting cost savings of around 4-5pc this year through a range of initiatives including both staff and non-staff costs. As part of this we are seeking a limited number of voluntary redundancies in editorial, as we position the business for revenue growth in a rapidly changing digital environment.”

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