Royal Mail to Cut 2,500 Jobs as Letter Volumes Collapse
Royal Mail will cut 2,500 head-office and other non-frontline roles by the end of 2027, just under 2% of a workforce of more than 131,000. Posties and drivers are excluded, and the company says it will use voluntary redundancy and natural wastage rather than compulsory cuts. Consultation with the unions has begun.
Letter volumes have fallen by more than 70% since the mid-2000s, which is the fact underneath everything else here. Alistair Cochrane, the chief executive: “These proposed changes remove duplication and allow us to invest further in the service we deliver for our customers... The proposed changes will not be easy, but they are an important part of building a stronger, simpler and future-ready Royal Mail.” The money saved is directed at a £500m investment programme over five years. Martin Walsh, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, reads it the other way: “further evidence of a company that is demoralising staff and failing to deliver for customers”, and he wants ministers to “confront the reality of a collapsing Royal Mail and intervene to save this national institution”. The union says about 200 of its own members, in administration and revenue protection, are affected. Unite blames the company, Ofcom and the government for failing to answer competition from gig-economy delivery firms. The service record is the part that reaches a letterbox: just over 75% of first-class post arrived on time in the year to the end of March against a 93% target, the company has been fined by Ofcom for missing it, and more than a hundred MPs have written to the regulator and the business secretary about delivery in their constituencies this year. Royal Mail has been owned by Daniel Křetínský’s EP Group since a £3.6bn takeover.