TAT slashes jobs in new blow for French parcels
TAT Express, the French post office’s B2B express parcels arm, is poised to axe almost 500 jobs out of a total workforce of around 1,800.
This is the second major shake-out to be announced in the past month in France’s parcel sector, following news that ABX’s French unit is to shed 500 staff (out of 4,500) as part of a €40m cost-cutting programme.
Weakened by an acquisition strategy undertaken three years ago, ABX France posted an operating loss of €20m in 2002 on a turnover of €618m, 21% of ABX’s global turnover.
The unit aims to return to profit from next year.
A TAT spokesman declined to comment on union claims that the cutbacks will also see the closure of 14 of the company’s 47 French depots and see the company’s customer base slashed from 5,000 to 1,000. The restructuring was designed to re-focus on TAT’s traditional core business of groupage services for parcels with unit weights of 20-25kg, he added.
TAT is reported to have lost €7m to date this year, having achieved break-even last year.
It handled 17m parcels in 2002 and generated a turnover of €186m.
In May this year, TAT and sister company Chronopost launched new France-Europe express products using the DPD road network.
