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Royal Mail is to cut 2,000 jobs as part of a major restructuring overhaul of the company following the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
The group says it plans to save £330 million over the next two years, reducing the number of management roles due to "increasing costs and reduced revenues since the crisis began."
In a statement, interim executive chairman at Royal Mail Group Keith Williams said the group was taking "immediate action" on costs to offset the impact of COVID-19.
"We are looking for around 2,000 management redundancies, primarily focused more on the most senior and non-operational managers," he said.
"At senior levels, that means losing nearly half of our managers. We also intend to reduce other managerial staffing by around 20 percent in office functions, and 10 percent frontline operational management, to save about £130 million in total."
The postal service says it wants to work with the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) on issues of "pay" to "make change happen."
The statement said: "We understand of course that we have a live dispute with the CWU and we obviously take the issues in that dispute seriously. We agree we need to improve our culture. We need to resolve all the issues in the dispute but we also need to talk about the issues we now face."
News of the job losses comes at a time when a number of companies have announced job losses, including EasyJet and British Airways, as the U.K. economy faces the prospects of its worst recession in 300 years as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown which bought the economy to a halt, according to the Bank of England.
In April, the full month of lockdown, the U.K.'s economy fell by a record 20.4 percent.
Williams said: "In recent years, our U.K. business has not adapted quickly enough to the changes in our marketplace of more parcels and fewer letters. COVID-19 has accelerated those trends, presenting additional challenges."
The announcement comes just week after the Royal Mail announced it was restarting its first and second-class deliveries on a Saturday after temporarily suspending the service for five weeks due to increasing numbers of staff on sick leave.
Deputy General Secretary Postal of the CWU Terry Pullinger told Sky News that he was saddened to hear of the 2,000 job losses but that he was not surprised given that the Royal Mail had faced "massive challenges over the last couple of years."
Asked about whether he could see the union working with the Royal Mail to address disputes and challenges in the future, he said: "We think so and we're hopeful, we've had a lot of dialogue, the company has been preparing for this situation and but also more importantly about resolving our disputes and working together."
Pullinger said he understood the challenges posed by "less letters and more parcels" but the answer for the Royal Mail was to remain a protected as a public service.
