RMCtv : Trading update

[POSTMAN]

Trading update

We have released our trading update for the nine months to the end of December, which includes the important peak Christmas period.
Our performance continues to be very worrying. We have announced an operating loss of £295 million for financial year to the end of December; the cost of the CWU’s 18 days of strike action has increased to c.£200 million.
This means we are continuing to lose £1 million a day.

Compared to the same period last year:
Total revenue was down 12.8%
Total domestic parcel volumes were down 21% (up 5% compared to pre-pandemic levels)
Addressed letter volumes (excluding elections) were down 8% (down 25% compared to pre-pandemic levels).

We all know that the Christmas period was really challenging for the business. However, despite seven days of industrial action, our robust contingency plans plus the efforts of our teams across the country, meant that we delivered over 110 million parcels and over 600 million addressed letters in December. We would also like to thank the 12,500 CWU-grade colleagues who returned to work on strike days.

Good progress has also been made on our plan to stabilise the business. We are on track with our programme to reduce the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) by 10,000 by August 2023. By focusing on reducing the number of temporary workers, combined with natural attrition, we now expect the number of voluntary redundancies needed will be significantly lower than the 5,000-6,000 communicated in October. As you know, we have committed to no compulsory redundancies.

The update we have given today with the decline in parcels and letters volumes, once again underlines the need for us to change.

Talks update

We are committed to resolving the dispute with the CWU, agree the changes our customers need and give you a pay rise.
We have met with the CWU again this week but once again we’re unable to pass conduct issues and revisions. The CWU is threatening to take further damaging strike action within the next three weeks. We wait to hear how the CWU decide to move forward.

You can read the full trading statement here...
https://www.myroyalmail.com/sites/defau ... 6-1-23.pdf