Royal Mail has announced that around 700 of its management staff will lose their jobs as a result of the company's drive to cut costs related to the recent Omicron wave.
The British multinational postal firm anticipates that the move will reduce its costs by around £40 million a year. In the coming days, Royal Mail will start negotiating the conditions of the upcoming job losses with trade unions.
The news comes following a recent spike in Covid cases sparked by the Omicron variant, which affected the company greatly with staff absences being as high as 15,000 in early January, the Daily Record reports.
This resulted in delays to postal services up and down the country.
Royal Mail saw revenue pick up during the Covid pandemic, with people turning to online shopping and deliveries during restrictions.
But the company found that those peaks started to ease off during the festive period, with parcel revenues and volumes down in the final three months of 2021.
However, this was still well up compared to pre-pandemic levels, at 43.9 per cent in revenues and 33 per cent in volumes, Royal Mail added.
Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson said: "With the rise of Omicron, absence has been around twice pre-Covid levels, with around 15,000 staff off sick or isolating in early January. Thankfully, this is now improving.
"We are resolutely focused on addressing these issues which have affected our service in some parts of the country.
"Year to date we have spent more than £340 million on overtime, additional temporary staffing and sick pay, as well as providing targeted support for the offices most impacted."
On the planned job cuts, he said: "We have today entered into formal consultation on a management reorganisation to further streamline our operations and, at the same time, improve focus on local performance.
"We are committed to conducting the process sensitively, working closely with our people and their representatives.
"We have a track record of delivering change through natural turnover, redeployment and voluntary redundancy wherever possible."
