Mark Sweney 

Daily Mail staff face job losses as online and print teams merge

News operations at Daily Mail and MailOnline to bring print and digital teams together
  
  

A copy of the Daily Mail newspaper in a letterbox
The move follows a managerial restructure at the Mail in October. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Staff at the Daily Mail and MailOnline have been told to expect job cuts by the publisher as it unveiled plans to combine its digital and print editorial and commercial teams into one seven-day operation.

In a letter to colleagues on Thursday, the Daily Mail’s editor-in-chief, Ted Verity, and the publisher and chief executive of parent group DMG media, Danny Groom, announced a shake-up that would “result in a number of job losses”.

They said its print and digital news operations would “fully come together with reporters and editors producing stories for online and the papers” while the Mail on Sunday would “become even more integrated” with the Monday to Saturday title.

Some roles will be put at risk of redundancy, while others could see an alteration in working pattern, job title, line manager or duties.

The letter does not specify how many staff will be affected, but says there will be a 30-day consultation period. Under UK employment law a 30-day consultation period means a maximum of 99 staff can be made redundant within a 90-day period. The job cuts do not impact the publisher’s US operation, which was the subject of a round of redundancies amounting to about 10% of its workforce last year.

The move follows a managerial restructure in October that saw Verity, the editor of Mail Newspapers since 2021, become editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail across all platforms.

The restructure also saw Groom, the publisher and editor-in-chief of MailOnline, promoted to his new role leading DMG Media, which also owns the freesheet Metro, the i newspaper and New Scientist magazine.

The publisher is hoping to further drive its digital paid-for content strategy, Mail+, which hit 100,000 paying subscribers in November having only been launched in January last year.

Most of MailOnline’s articles remain free to read but Mail+, which is to be launched in the US later this year, contains paywalled core content including showbusiness, royal stories, health, personal finance advice and columnists.

Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), the parent of DMG Media, has been contacted but declined to comment.

DMGT is the latest publisher to seek to cut staff and costs with the deepest coming at Reach, which owns national papers including the Mirror and the Express and scores of local titles including the Manchester Evening News and the Liverpool Echo, slashing almost 800 roles two years ago.

 

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