Up to 100 jobs reported to be at risk across Express Newspapers as publisher plans ‘digital first’ future

Up to 100 jobs could be cut at Express Newspapers, publisher of the Express and Star titles, according to The Guardian.

The publisher, owned by Richard Desmond (pictured, Reuters), is expected to internally announce a savings target of between £10m and £14m, according to the report.

Press Gazette understands the changes are part of the publisher's plans for "repositioning towards a digital first operation".

Express.co.uk and Dailystar.co.uk have been audited by ABC since February. In the months from February to June, the Express site has seen its traffic increase from 441,032 daily unique users to 705,976, and the Star’s from 327,098 to 524,986.

Express Newspapers created 40 online editorial jobs last summer, meaning staff numbers were said to be up to nearly 600.

In the summer of 2012, plans to cut 70 editorial jobs across Express Newspapers were announced. In October that year, the National Union of Journalists said that the threat of compulsory redundancies had been averted after 40 journalists chose to leave voluntarily.

In the latest savings target, The Guardian reports that around £5m of the targeted savings could relate directly to editorial, which is about the same amount as was targeted in the 2012 cuts.

The report states that a voluntary redundancy scheme will be opened this week, although the staff reduction target in not known. It is also not clear whether Northern and Shell’s magazine division, which publishes OK, Star and New, will be targeted.