Royal Mail is to reduce its number of full-time employees by at least 30,000, according to a strategic plan that it has submitted to Postcomm, the mail regulator.
The disclosure will come as a shock to Royal Mail employees, who are still adjusting to a reduction in staff from 218,000 to 165,000 since 2000.
It also puts into context the recent warning made by Allan Leighton, Royal Mail’s chairman, that planned price controls would lead to 40,000 job losses.
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Leighton said over the weekend: “There will be no compulsory redundancies.”
A spokesman for the Communication Workers’ Union said the news was “extremely unsettling” for postal workers.
