Jobs to go as Whistl axes letter deliveries
HUNDREDS of jobs look set to be axed after postal group Whistl said it was ending its letter delivery service.
The Dutch-owned firm, formerly known as TNT Post, operates from 10 sites in the region, including Formby, Gorton, Levenshulme, Moston, and Manchester city centre. Nationally the service has 1,800 employees.
The company suspended its ‘last mile’ service, E2E last month after losing funding for the business venture, but has now decided to shut it down altogether.
It had been delivering around three million letters a week. It stressed it will continue to collect and sort more than 80 million items per week, to be fed into the Royal Mail system for final delivery to people’s homes.
Parent company PostNL said: “Following the termination of the discussions on the proposed investment in Whistl UK to fund the further rollout of its current end to end (E2E) activities, we have assessed alternative scenarios for Whistl’s E2E operations. Further to this assessment, it has been decided to end Whistl’s E2E operations. Whistl remains committed to further developing its successful activities in the UK, including downstream access (DSA) service, door drop media, packets & parcels and logistics.
“Whistl is in ongoing consultation with the affected employees through their union and employee representatives to minimise the impact of this decision.
A further statement from Whistl added more detail, stating that after a thorough strategic review there is “no viable alternative solution” for the letter delivery service and “it will not continue”.
“The rollout of E2E began in 2012 and was put on hold due to numerous regulatory issues. These delays impacted on our ability to invest in the service, expand our coverage, and ultimately to meet the targets of the original business plan and deliver a long term sustainable service.
“Whistl is in ongoing consultation with the affected employees in E2E through their union and employee representatives to minimise the impact of this difficult decision. Whistl is proud of the opportunities we created for many young and long term unemployed people in our E2E service and hope that the skills and experience they have gained will enable them to find re employment very quickly.”
It stressed that the E2E was a small proportion of its total business in this country,, adding: “We continue to be the second largest postal operator in the UK… To put this development into context E2E handled 3 million items a week whilst the DSA business collects and sorts over 80 million items a week. In addition, we also have a long established door drop media division and are growing in packets and parcels and logistics.”
