Dozens of Wall Street Journal staff in Europe face the axe

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is significantly reducing its presence in Europe as the latest round of cutbacks from publisher Dow Jones sweeps through the continent, people with knowledge of the situation say.

As part of a reorganisation that began last week, Dow Jones is closing or scaling back bureaus in Budapest, Madrid and Warsaw, according to the people, who asked not to be named. The company, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, was considering moving newswire operations to Barcelona, supplementing an existing London hub, one of the people said.

Other bureaus could also be affected by layoffs and closings.

More cuts were planned as part of a broad review of operations under the three-year WSJ 2020 programme at Dow Jones, the people said. The company confirmed unspecified reductions in Europe and Asia last week after they were discussed by a US union representative.

“We remain committed to covering the regions and will continue to do so robustly,” the company said.

A spokeswoman for Dow Jones declined to comment.

Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with News Corp and the Wall Street Journal in providing financial news and services.

Some Journal reporters and editors in Germany and Russia had also been let go, one of the people said. In the Nordic region, the only news staffer left was an editor in Stockholm, said one of the people.

While it is unclear how many jobs will be lost in total, the newspaper itself reported that the current changes would result in dismissals for dozens.

The cuts that began last week follow dismissals of US workers at the Journal in November and the combining of sections to save on print costs. The Journal is scaling back on expenses as it tries to sign up more online subscribers to make up for a decline in print ads. The Journal surpassed 1-million digital-only subscribers in 2016.

The WSJ 2020 plan is focused on driving membership on mobile devices and bringing revenue streams in line with modern news consumption habits.