Swiss Post will cut 100 jobs in its express and courier centres in numerous cities across thecountry by the end of the year while a total of around 300 employees will be affected by the
restructuring measures.The job cuts were confirmed by Swiss Post spokesman Oliver Flueler in the Zurich-basednewspapers “NZZ am Sonntag” and “Sonntags-Zeitung”. The 100 positions to be cut make up about 40%of the total workforce employed at the company’s courier and express divisions. There are 260people currently employed across the two businesses in Zurich, Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne,Winterthur, Olten and Aarau.
Post officials said they had devised a social plan to help the dismissed employees find new jobswhile also offering early retirement packages. The plan also includes termination payoffscorresponding to 2-4 monthly wages, contributions to relocation costs as well as professionaltraining and longer notice periods for people aged over 50. Employees that accept another postwithin the company with a lower salary will get the difference paid for one year.
Swiss Post already announced the restructuring of its courier and express services last Octoberand warned jobs were likely to be cut due to a significant volume drop in recent years acceleratedeven more by the economic slowdown. To increase synergies between distribution bases and couriercentres, all residual courier centres and branches have been integrated into existing distributionbases since last November.
Most of the workers who could lose their jobs work on a part-time basis. According to Flueler,Swiss Post does its best to avoid dismissals. For now, the postal operator tries to make theconcerned employees leave voluntarily through a payoff of CHF 10,000-25,000. From April onwards, itwill be decided on further layoffs.
In the last few years, Swiss Post’s courier and express services have been suffering botheconomically and structurally with significant volume declines and increasing competition in thismarket segment causing margins to fall further. This resulted in the need for permanent monitoringof organisational structures.
The Swiss postal union Kommunikation expressed severe criticism of the job cuts. “It can’t bethat the workforce has to pay for management mistakes of the post,” the union said. In 2005, SwissPost had outsourced the express post to an independent subsidiary against the union’s wishes. “Thepost followed stubbornly the common management lesson and now has to admit the complete failure ofthis strategy,” the union declared.
No job cuts are planned in the other units of the postal operator, officials confirmed. Thestate enterprise currently employs around 58,000 staff as one of the largest employers inSwitzerland.
