Amidst accusations of phone hacking, the Sunday tabloid, News of the World, turned off its presses for good in mid July. Of the 200 employees working the paper, 89 have agreed to what is being referred to as an ‘enhanced redundancy package.’
News International is the publisher of both the Times and the Sun as well, so these 110 jobs which they announced cutting is not expected to interfere with the day to day operations of those two publications. The announcement was made via email sent to staff by the new chief executive, Tom Mockridge, who took over for Rebekah Brooks when the scandal hit.
Whilst every effort was made to move those disenfranchised employees over to the other two publications, only 23 have found permanent jobs to date. With 89 of 200 taking voluntary redundancy that leaves the other 110 to 111 being forced out of work. Thankfully those 89 agreed to redundancy packages but what of the other 20 or so former News International workers?
There is some amount of speculation that some jobs will be available in their online venue that was begun in July, but this is not written in stone as of yet. There is further talk of some jobs being within the new iPad daily news for a UK audience, but that remains to be seen.
The chief executive did thank everyone for their perseverance and the hard work they put in during these difficult times, but he went on to say that News International would still need to cut those 110 jobs for purely financial reasons.
At a time when the economy is already at historic deficits and there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers in the UK, these 110 jobs do make an impact. It may not seem like much but if you added up all the employers in the UK who are forced to make over 100 of their workers redundant, it adds up more quickly than you know.
