Royal Mail have announced 5,000 job losses by March 2023, 10,000 by August 2023, and that up to 6,000 of the job losses will be forced redundancies from frontline roles in delivery and processing. Oh.. and Royal Mail say that they can no longer afford to pay their normal redundancy terms which offered up to two years’ full pay and will consult with the CWU on worsened redundancy packages.
This is in response the the pressures strikes are putting on the company, lowered parcel volumes. Royal Mail say that they will reduce overtime, use of temporary staff and rely on natural attrition to lower the number of Posties that will be made redundant, but currently there may still be 5-6,000 compulsory redundancies by August next year,
Royal Mail now expects to incur a full year adjusted operating loss of around £350 million, including the direct impact of eight days of industrial action which have taken place or been notified to Royal Mail, but excluding any charges for voluntary redundancy costs. This may increase to around a £450 million loss and additional job losses if customers move volume away for longer periods following the initial disruption.
Communication Workers Union (CWU) has threatened, but not yet formally notified Royal Mail, of a further 16 days of strikes in November and December. If these take place, the loss for the full year would increase materially and may necessitate further operational restructuring and headcount reduction
– Royal Mail
With the CWU currently on day six of strikes out of 25 it’s not looking good and 10,000 job losses are going to do nothing to calm the Union, who as the news broke this morning demanded a meeting with the board to set out their alternative vision for the future.
GLS remains on track to meet full year expectations of an adjusted operating profit between €370 – €410 million. Royal Mail restated that these profits won’t be used to prop up Royal Mail losses and that they’d rather separate the two companies than subsides the losses of one with the profits of the other.
9 Responses
Our local depot is very short staffed as is. Our postie does two rounds: two days on each. So we only get once or twice a week. These cuts will make it even worse. RM should never have been privatised.
grab yer minimum wage at evri ! while you can
I remember many businesses destroyed by striking workers, especially in the 1970’s – everybody loses.
I completely agree with the fight for fairer pay & conditions. A happy workforce is a product workforce. What wider effects does Royal Mail have on the wider economy / e-commerce in the UK ?
It’s so badly managed top down, it’s staggering. There has been so many strategy changes in there over the last 2-3 years I think they’ve forgotten how to get back to a good system. Postie here- started 9 years ago and it was a great service, not a letter got left at the office, now its just on its knees. Office managers are basically plugging holes on a daily basis. Our recent restructuring, cutting hours (staffing) actually cost them more money…. there was talk off yet more staffing cuts and this was before the redundancy chat. There’s so many ineffective ideas that come down to us, constant changes which we have no say in.. Most posties I know are striking not because of pay, its the standards which have slipped so far everyone has just got fed up with our bosses. In in recent years we’ve had not enough equipment to go round, sharing pdas, not enough mail bags (I mean honestly). With the redundancies, I dont think the company understand the impact of losing its most knowledgeable, experienced staff will have. The fasted efficient posties know their rounds, their customers…. Being part time or agency staff you just don’t pick up on speed as well because you don’t gain this knowledge being moved from pillar to post. Anyway I could go on. Its a fantastic job, I love it but I’m not sure for how much longer. The threatened unpaid overtime and sick leave will probably kill the job off for me (they rely on us daily doing overtime).
RM so much like EBay….. once big but now on the way to crash and burn. They both had a monopoly, but poor management decisions and simple cash grabs forced their core users elsewhere. It’s not rocket science.