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The jobs being lost are almost exclusively editorial production jobs, permanent and casuals, as the two papers introduce a new editorial systems that will controversially see reporters putting their copy straight onto the page bypassing sub-editors.

Staff at two papers, The Daily Express and Sunday Express, were told about the cuts in a letter from group managing editor Ian Parrott.

Parrott said: "The reason for these changes is that it is imperative for the business that substantial cost savings are made.

"This is the only way we can maintain a viable business able to cope with the problems of the national economy and the credit crunch and its continuing effect on us -- the substantial drop in our advertising revenues and the continuing drop in our circulation figures."

The cuts could lead to strike action as talks with management and the National Union of Journalists representations continue. In April, Express Newspapers journalists cancelled further strike action after accepting a management offer of talks to bring outsourced editorial work back in-house, as well as a 3% pay rise.

The deal came after Express journalists held a 24-hour strike earlier in April, picketing outside the newspapers' parent company Northern & Shell. It marked the first full day of strike action taken by journalists at a major national newspaper since 1990.

The NUJ said that the news came as a shock and that the precise numbers of job cuts quoted by Express Newspapers were suggestive that the plans had been in place for some time.

While there is no confirmation of the exact numbers, estimates range from 69 to more than 80 journalists losing their jobs by the end of the year.

These include 36 staff subeditors out of a total of 62, a tiny number compared to national newspaper rivals. The other job cuts include 33 long-term casual subeditors as well as a number of other casuals.

The new system being introduced is a Woodwing editorial system, which is used by many newspaper and magazine publishers.

Earlier this year Express Newspapers reported a six-fold increase in pre-tax profits for last year, which swelled to nearly £55m, according to accounts filed at Companies House.

The owner of the Daily Express, Sunday Express and Daily Star national newspapers reported a pre-tax profit of £54.85m, on turnover of more than £280m, in the year ending 31 December, 2007.

However, despite the profits rise in the most recent ABC figures The Daily Express suffered a 0.9% slip in circulation, to average 735,451 copies a day in July and the Sunday Express lost 3.3% to fall to 655,003, and the Sunday Post losing 0.6% to hit 392,221.

Richard Desmond, owner of Express Newspapers, came in at 35th in this year's The Sunday Times Rich List with £1.9bn. He was 25th on the list in 2007.