Consignia to cut 2,100 jobs
Consignia, formerly known as the UK Post Office, said on Friday that it is cutting 2,100 jobs as increasing competition in mail delivery begins to bite.
A spokeswoman for the company, which employs 200,000 staff across the country, said yesterday that the business was trying to become more cost-effective. The job cuts were announced to Consignia staff through an internal memo on Thursday.
They are part of a wider strategic review of the business. The organisation is facing competition in its main delivery area for the first time, as commercial organisations are invited to apply for licences to deliver the post in Consignia’s monopoly area.
Last month, Consignia said that full-year results had been disappointing. The company was left AGBP44m (e52) in the red, after paying a AGBP93m dividend to the government, its only shareholder. The Independent on Sunday Consignia is turning to online shopping to save its troubled rural postal network. Faced with declining market share and competition from increased e-mail and internet use, the distribution group was forced to close a record 547 local post offices last year.
In an effort to increase customer traffic at local branches, online shoppers using Consignia’s worldofshopping.com website will be given the option of nominating a local post office as an alternative delivery address. In trials of the scheme in the West Country, 75% of customers who entered post offices were there specifically to collect online purchases.
Consignia will benefit from a cut in the number of expensive failed deliveries.
Copyright 2001 eFinancial News.
Source: EFinancial Times – Europe Intelligence Wire.
EFINANCIAL NEWS, 16th July 2001
