Royal Mail is considering axing around 10,000 fulltime roles by August next year, parent group International Distribution Services has announced.
Royal Mail said it has started the process of consulting over “rightsizing the business in response to the impact of industrial action, delays in delivering agreed productivity improvements and lower parcel volumes”. It said it is seeking short-term cost efficiencies through the planned reduction of 5,000 fulltime equivalent roles by March and around 10,000 by August 2023.
It said this expected to require up to 6,000 redundancies by the summer. It came amid a warning by parent group International Distributions Services that Royal Mail is expected to tumble to a £350 million operating loss for the year after being hit by industrial action.
The cuts announcement comes a day after Royal Mail workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) launched a fresh strike in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions. Postal workers will stage numerous walkouts in the lead-up to the busy Christmas period, with 19 further days of strike action in the coming weeks.
Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson said: “This is a very sad day. I regret that we are announcing these job losses. We will do all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies and support everyone affected.
“We have announced today losses of £219 million in the first half of the year. Each strike day weakens our financial situation. The CWU’s decision to choose damaging strike action over resolution regrettably increases the risk of further headcount reductions.”
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