Redundancies on the cards at YouGov UK

UK-- YouGov is set to announce job cuts in the face of “difficult” trading conditions.

The firm's UK chief executive, Tim Britton, told Research: “We are reviewing our UK business and that will probably result in a small number of redundancies.”

He would not go into further detail about which areas of the business would be affected by the review or speculate on how many positions could be at risk.

However, he said that rumours circulating the industry yesterday that up to 80% of the firm's staff were facing the axe were “total nonsense”.

Britton said the firm was looking to focus on the most profitable parts of the business, namely the omnibus, brand index services and their key ad hoc market sectors, during “difficult” trading conditions.

“We are living in a totally different place to last year,” he said. “There is hardly a sector that isn't affected.”

In February, the firm issued a profit warning for the six months ending 31 January 2009. Britton said today: “It is disappointing not to be growing as fast as we had hoped.”

The company will present its interim results to market on Monday.

Author: James Verrinder