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Royal Mail is suffering from a high number of staff absences with less than two weeks to go until Christmas as the Omicron coronavirus variant makes its presence known in the UK.
Nearly two dozen delivery offices in locations across the country were operating at a reduced capacity today, which Royal Mail attributed to factors including “high levels” of people being off sick and in Covid-related self-isolation.
Omicron has toppled Delta to become the dominant variant of Covid-19 in London, and other UK regions are on the same trajectory, according to data from the UK Health Security Agency.
Across England, 24 per cent of new coronavirus cases recorded on 11 and 12 December are believed to be due to Omicron while in London the strain is thought to account for 52 per cent of cases.
That figure stands at 26.9 per cent in the East of England, 25.4 per cent in the South East and 20.8 per cent in the North West.
Royal Mail has listed the locations of 23 offices that it said were “most impacted” by staff absence and where it “may temporarily not be possible” to deliver mail to all the addresses for which it has letters and parcels. The affected areas included postcodes in London, Essex, Shropshire, Merseyside, Pontypridd and Belfast.
Mail centres in locations including Bristol, Sheffield and Warrington also reported that not all mail was processed or despatched to schedule on Tuesday, so residents and businesses in these areas could also expect delays.
A spokesman for Royal Mail confirmed that absence levels were “higher than we would usually experience at this time of year” but insisted it was operating a “normal” service across most of the country.
Next Monday is expected to be the busiest day of the year for sending off Christmas cards and according to the Post Office. In 2019, post offices experienced more than double their regular trading activity in the two weeks before Christmas, and the company has predicted Britons will behave similarly this year.
A Post Office spokesman said that while more than 11,500 branches were open and operating as normal, “occasionally branches do temporarily close or have to reduce their hours due to staffing issues caused by the pandemic”.
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Meanwhile some Royal Mail workers have objected to being instructed to work on New Year’s Day, which is a Saturday.
Members of the Communication Workers Union have argued that 1 January should be a “non-service” day, even though the official New Year’s Day Bank Holiday falls on Monday 3 January.
Communications regulator Ofcom has said it will consider the union’s argument and respond this week.
