ROYAL Mail plans to axe 700 jobs to cut costs as part of a shake-up of the business.
The postal service announced this job cuts this morning, which will affect hundreds of staff in management roles.
Royal Mail said the restructure is eventually expected to save around £40million a year.
Simon Thompson, Royal Mail chief executive, 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.”
He said the company had a “track record” of offering affected staff redeployment within the business or voluntary redundancy.
Royal Mail has opened a statutory consultation with Unite, the union, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
It will also work with the Communications Workers Union (CWU) during the process.
Royal Mail also published an update on absences due to Covid, which has caused delivery delays across the country.
The number of staff off sick peaked at 15,000 over Christmas and early January, which is around 12% of the workforce.
“This has resulted in increased costs and impacted quality of service in some areas of the country,” Royal Mail said.
The absence rate has now fallen below 10%, it said.