Up to 25 jobs are to go at the Herald and Times newspapers after the publisher announced the fourth round of redundancies in just over a year.

Staff at the newspaper group, which encompasses the Herald, Sunday Herald, Evening Times and The National, were taken into a meeting at its building in Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon.

They were told that between 20 and 25 editorial jobs would be going as part of £1m cuts by publisher Newsquest.

It is the fourth time in 14 months Newsquest has announced it would be axing jobs across the titles. In August, it announced 20 editorial posts would be made redundant.

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There are now half the journalists currently employed across the titles as there were when Newsquest took over as publisher.

NUJ Scotland national organiser, Paul Holleran, said: “This is the fourth round of editorial redundancies in the Newsquest Scottish titles in 14 months.

“This is not a clever way of running a publishing company and there is a serious risk to future of the newspapers in this stable.

“We are concerned that a further reduction in quality is inevitable as talented journalists lose their jobs and those remaining struggle with an increasing workload to gather and produce news and features that help sell the product.

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“Newsquest executives and board members need to take a new look at the way they are running the business. Pursuing unrealistic profit targets by constantly making cuts instead of innovative growth of the business is not sustainable in the long term.

“There now are less than half the journalists employed at The Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times compared to when Newsquest took over this historic Scottish publisher.

“Their promises (to nurture and grow the business) to the Competition Commission now ring hollow. The NUJ will endeavour to work with the new management team, who have inherited this situation, in mitigating the loss of jobs and damage to the titles.

“However we are not prepared to accept blatant compulsory redundancies and there is little doubt the chapel will stand up for that principle.

“I am sure we can put into place maximum consultation to ensure a restructured editorial team which provides support for the workforce while producing decent newspapers but Newsquest need to work flexibly with the union on a number of fronts including acceptable redundancy terms for those at risk.”