Royal Mail to cut 1,300 jobs to save £50m a year

The Royal Mail, Britain's newly-privatised postal service, is to cut around 1,300 operational and head office jobs to save around £50m a year.

The company, which was sold off last October in Britain's biggest privatisation for decades, has shed almost 50,000 jobs since 2003 to compete in a market in which the internet has created a shift from letters to parcels.

Royal Mail said it will start a formal consultation on Tuesday with the Unite and CWU unons. It plans to reduce around 1,600 roles but create 300 new ones.

It said the cuts would not affect "frontline" postmen.

Moya Greene, the chief executive of Royal Mail, said: "We are continuously improving our efficiency, whilst maintaining our high Quality of Service. We need to do so in order to effectively compete in the letters and parcels markets.

"This is the best way to ensure the continued delivery of the Universal Service and the good quality jobs we provide for our people."

Royal Mail will take a charge of £100m and expects to make savings of £25m in 2014-15 as a result of the cuts.

Shares in Royal Mail fell 2pc in early trading on Tuesday,

more