2,000 BBC Jobs To Go

The BBC is set to lay off almost 2,000 staff over the next 12 months, as it gears up for the second year of director general Mark Thompson's cost-cutting programme.
The corporation is currently 50 jobs short of reaching this year's target of shedding 1,045 staff, according to broadcasting union Bectu, after a combination of outsourcing and voluntary redundancy.

But the second year's target - to be achieved by the end of March 2007 - is set at 1,920 jobs,  causing fear among unions that there will be more compulsory redundancies.

"I imagine it could be more difficult to avoid compulsory redundancies because it is a higher  next year," said Bectu negotiator Luke Crawley. "We just don't know how we're going to achieve those numbers. For the moment we're just focusing on this year's figures."

   2,000 VOLUNTEERED

Around 2,000 staff are believed to have applied for voluntary redundancy, giving unions a head start on the coming year's cutbacks. The BBC is expected to produce plans for the second year's cuts by September at the latest, in order to start negotiations to avoid compulsory redundancies.

The figure for the final year of Thompson's three-year programme of cutbacks is 799 jobs, to be achieved by March 2008, bringing total job cuts to 3,764.

The unions are still negotiating on outstanding job cuts in factual and learning, which is around 30 short of its year one target, as well as a handful of jobs in Scotland and Wales.

They will meet on Tuesday, 28 March, to discuss progress on the cuts.