NZ Post reveals strategy to ease cuts

NZ POST is forming a new division to help thousands of staff cope with the prospect of redundancy, as it signals 2000 jobs could be cut in the next four years.

Citing an ‘‘irreversible’’ decline in mail volumes, chairman Sir Michael Cullen said yesterday that technology meant changes were inevitable, with mail volumes falling by more than 8 per cent a year.

Frontline posties would feel most of the cuts.

Last week the Government hastily announced changes to NZ Post’s service agreement which will cut delivery to most urban addresses to three days a week from 2015.

Yesterday’s announcement gave greater detail to changes over the next five years, meaning one in five of the 10,000-strong workforce could lose their jobs.

Sir Michael said the announcement was a sad day for posties, a ‘‘Kiwi institution’’, which had been dedicated and efficient but overtaken by changes in technology.

‘‘They [posties] are a special breed of people. [If] you stop your postie, you’ll find all kinds of people, all kinds of interests, all kinds of skills and qualifications.

‘‘Some people are going to find it a lot easier than others to find employment.’’

Sir Michael, a former deputy prime minister, said changes made to state-owned activities in the 1980s had ripped through provincial New Zealand, including in February 1988, when 400 Post Shops were closed in a single day.

‘‘We have small towns in New Zealand that still bear the scars of those changes. That is not going to happen here.’’

NZ Post would consult individually with workers about their potential to move within the ganisation, retrain, budget, cope with being out of a job.

The remaining postal workers would also have to change. Cyclebased postie services would be replaced by a combination of walking and driving, reflecting the growth in parcel postage.

Other changes include expectations that Kiwibank will continue to grow as part of the business. While Sir Michael said the bank needed more capital to allow it to grow, the funds would probably oror

Concerned: Postal Workers Union president John Maynard says there is a clash of culture at NZ Post, where posties want to do a good job but the company is seemingly reluctant to fight declining mail volumes.