However, national officer Steve Sibbald said he believed a turnaround could begin in the next 12 months, based on the current positive outlook in the packaging sector.

Yesterday (29 June) Wyndeham Group announced that 58 jobs could go at Wyndeham Roche after a review of the business.

It is the latest in a long line of job losses, closures and capacity cuts that have hit the web offset sector since 2009.

Sibbald said: "Hopefully the company can turn things around, but we seem to be faced with this tsunami through the sector. I honestly can't ever remember it being as bad as this – in print in general, but specifically in the magazine arena."

Sibbald said that he had hoped the "huge" reduction in capacity of late would have started to have an effect but added: "There hasn't been anywhere near the effect needed to make print profitable again"

"Until that point we will continue to see reductions and closures. There has to be a turning point, there just has to, but when?"

He indicated that he believed the turnaround may start to be seen next summer.

"If you look at the packaging sector, it is now doing very well," he said. "But they went through two or three years of pain.

"The magazine sector has the added difficulty of technology, it is competing with the iPad and the Kindle, but it has faced at least two years of struggles so I see the end coming in 12 months' time."