The Guardian announced Wednesday that Guardian News & Media will layoff more than 100 of its current 1 700 editorial and commercial employees. The company, which oversees the Guardian, the Observer, and guardian.co.uk, will be offering voluntary buy-outs until the close of the year to attempt to get to the required number. If not enough workers come forward by that time, the company will then be forced into compulsory redundancies.

Voluntary lay-offs have already seen 68 editorial employees at the paper leave since the beginning of the year. Commercial operations has already lost 82 persons this year.

The Guardian cites economic troubles as the reason for the cuts. The company announced that it expects to do worse than the projected £33million losses, and, thus, must make up the difference through staff cuts.

This announcement comes less than a week after Guardian America, the US branch of the Guardian, announced that it was laying off six employees. Other recent publications to announce staff cuts include the Star Tribune, the Trinity Mirror, and the New York Times.

It was also announced that the Guardian's Thursday Technology section would stop being published at the end of the year. The weekly Observer's Music Monthly, Women and Sports Monthly, Escape travel section, and separate Business and Personal Finance sections will also cease publication at the end of the year. Instead, the Observer will be redesigned to include only four sections- news, sports, the Review, and the Observer Magazine, as well as the Observer Food Monthly. The company will also tweek the structure of the core team of reporters for the Observer. These changes will save the company a reported £2million.

This restructuring announcement confirms that the Observer will indeed survive, despite the summer-long rumours of a possible shut down.

According to Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of Guardian Media Group, the parent company of Guardian News & Media, ""At GMG and GNM we can control our own destiny. If we do the right things now, which I believe we are doing, GNM and its journalism will continue to enjoy both security and stability. We are confident about the long-term prospects of our portfolio of businesses and investments, and about the cash we have - and will have - to support GNM. But that confidence is conditional on the successful implementation of the changes we are making at GNM - specifically a substantial further reduction in costs."

Source: Guardian