Albion bosses have announced they are aiming to let a tenth of the workforce go before the start of the new season.

The club’s employees were told in a meeting yesterday that up to 18 jobs will go as the club seeks to reduce costs.

Albion chief executive Paul Barber said the move was needed because of imminent new Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules and following reviews of staffing following the transition to the American Express Community Stadium.

The redundancies are expected to save the club almost £1 million.

However, the club admitted that some compulsory redundancies could be made if not enough voluntary losses are found before the start of next season.

Staff have been told about the job losses in a series of meetings over the last week and already about half a dozen have indicated they will go voluntarily.

Mr Barber said the decision to make redundancies was the last option of a year of reviews looking at raising revenue and cost cutting. He said the raising of revenues and cost-saving elsewhere had helped to reduce the amount of redundancies needed.

The offer of redundancy is open to employees in all departments of the club outside of playing staff.

Albion in the Community staff are not affected by the offer at this stage.

Staff taking voluntary redundancy will be given an enhanced financial package as well as access to counsellors, careers advisors and personal financial advisors.

Failing to meet the FFP rules could see the club hit with heavy fines and transfer embargoes.

Club officials said that other Championship teams could also be facing similar, if not bigger, cost-cutting programmes.

The recently-published Deloitte review of football finance revealed that Albion’s operating losses of £9.1 million in 2011/12 were dwarfed by their rivals Leicester (£18 million), Southampton (£19 million) and Reading (£21 million).

Mr Barber said: “We have had an amazing couple of years at the Amex, it has been incredibly successful, but moving the club forward we have to make sure the club is reengineered for the next stage of the journey.

“Staff numbers is what we have left to absolute last and be-cause of newrevenue streams and costs being reduced we are able to minimise the impact of these job losses by doing these things first.

“Every pound we save is a pound we can put back on the pitch in terms of investment.”