FT to shed 10% of staff as slump bites

THE loss-making Financial Times, which has borne the brunt of the global advertising downturn, plans to shed up to 10% of its workforce in a bid to cut costs.

In a further blow to hopes of a recovery in the City, the FT plans to axe as many as 100 jobs across its commercial operations - which employ 600 people in advertising sales, IT, production and global finance and facilities.

The newspaper's 400 editorial staff are not expected to be affected, but further job losses are expected in human resources, customer service, conferences and e-commerce in the weeks ahead.

A spokeswoman said a 30-day consultation period with staff began on Wednesday and a final decision on the exact number of job losses would be known by the end of next month.

'There will be redundancies, we don't know how many, and it will not be sensible to speculate on the eventual tally,' said Joanna Manning-Cooper. 'This only impacts the commercial side of the business and the way we run those commercial functions in our London office.'

The FT, flagship of the Pearson publishing group led by Dame Majorie Scardino, has been hit harder than most national newspapers during the recent advertising recession.

Last year its ad revenue fell by about 23% due to a slowdown in corporate activity and cost-cutting at the top end of town. In April, the FT was relaunched in a bid to reverse three years of flagging sales which saw circulation drop by nearly a third to around 147,000.