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Around 700 Royal Mail management staff are set to lose their jobs as part of cost-cutting measures, the company has announced.
The delivery firm said that the move will reduce costs by around £40 million a year and will start negotiations with trade unions over job losses in the coming days.
It was also confirmed that the Omicron wave of Covid impacted the company greatly, with staff absences peaking at 15,000 in early January.
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.”
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