The crippling financial woes at the SABC are set to cause a jobs bloodbath that will see more than 800 employees retrenched to reduce its R1.2bn annual wage bill.

Sunday World understands that the public broadcaster is in the process of reducing its humungous wage bill and one of the proposals on the table was slashing its 4000 workforce.

At least 3000 of the employees are full-time while the other thousand is made up of freelancers.

According to multiple sources from SABC headquarters in Auckland Park, several meetings have been held at different levels and by different departments in which the prospects of culling employees were discussed.

Insiders privy to the developments said the SABC took the decision following its new CEO Madoda Mxakwe's request to various divisions to find a way to cut the public broadcaster's salary bill.

The issue of retrenchments was discussed during an executive committee meeting last week Friday.

A senior executive said the SABC intends to save between R400m and R500m per year to ensure that its coffers are not overburdened by the wage bill when the bail out from government is processed.

"So far, indications are that we would get the guarantee from the government, even though it's not the amount we asked for."