30,000 Royal Mail jobs under threat

More than 30,000 postal employees face redundancy over the next 18 months as the Government and Royal Mail finalise details of a ‘phantom’ share scheme, which will give every worker a stake worth up to Pounds 5,000.

The windfalls are expected to make the latest round of redundancies more palatable for the 200,000 workforce. All of the cuts will be voluntary. A similar scale of losses was introduced two years ago.

Redundancies are inevitable because part of the restructuring of Royal Mail will be Pounds 1 billion in cash from the Government, which will be used to install sophisticated sorting machines. The restructuring will also allow Royal Mail to reduce the size of its Pounds 5 billion pension deficit.

Modernisation will mean fewer workers are needed. The job cuts are expected to start in six months to a year after the new machines have been installed and are running efficiently.

Details of the share scheme will be unveiled in the next two weeks and it will resemble the one operated by Unipart. But unlike workers at the Oxford logistics company, who have to buy their shares, Royal Mail staff will initially be given theirs free.

The postal workers, who will own 20 per cent of the business, will be allowed to trade shares twice a year at a price to be set by an independent body.