Australia Post to slash hundreds of roles

Around 400 roles will be slashed from its Melbourne head office starting at the executive level and will also include general managers and heads of departments.

But the organisation said no frontline roles would be impacted.

“Australia Post has for a number of years been flagging the significant structural headwinds it is facing,’’ a spokesperson said.

“Globally, letter volumes are declining due to increasing uptake of technology.

“At its recent half-year financial results, Australia Post announced it will report a full-year loss, the first time since 2015.

“With ongoing letters losses, and parcels growth moderating, a new operating model for Australia Post’s corporate support office is being introduced to simplify our business and operating support structures.

“This will, in part, help Australia Post respond to the financial pressures it is facing.

“As an entirely self-funded business that receives no taxpayer funding, Australia Post needs to adapt the structure of its support office team to be more efficient and face into these challenges. No frontline roles are affected.

“These changes are aligned with our Post26 strategy and designed to allow Australia Post to continue its critical role for Australian communities into the future.’’

It comes as Australia Post warned in March that is was bracing for “significant losses” due to a decline in letter deliveries after the Federal Government released a discussion paper aimed at modernising the organisation.

Households receive approximately 2.4 letters a week – a third of what they received in 2007-08 – with modelling predicting that will fall to just one by the end of the decade.

AusPost chief executive Paul Graham said its “letters business has been in an unstoppable decline since 2008 and the 214-year-old postal service faces an uncertain future as fewer people send letters and consumers increasingly embrace digital services”.

“The business is on a path towards significant losses that, without change, will have to be covered by the Australian taxpayer and that is money that could be better spent on schools, hospitals and roads,” he said.

Ways to modernise the service could be through increasing flexibility and delivery reliability for parcel delivery, making it more convenient and accessible for consumers and small businesses, and continued support for regional and remote communities.

Australia Post is not the only company reducing headcount, with a number of local companies culling staff in recent months.

Melbourne-based software start-up Culture Amp, which was recently valued at $2 billion, also revealed this week that it was laying off 9 per cent of its staff with around 100 roles to be impacted.

Chief executive Didier Elzinga said it was an “extremely difficult call” particularly after it had raised $100 million in funding in 2021.

“We have watched lots of other companies do lay-offs, however we chose to first pull a number of other levers in line with the softening market conditions. Unfortunately as the year has progressed we are not seeing any evidence that the conditions for our customers will improve in the near term,” he said in a letter sent to staff on Wednesday.

“In the context of this difficult macroeconomic environment, we need to ensure that Culture Amp can deliver on its mission no matter how long the markets take to improve.”

Those who are made redundant will receive a minimum of 10 weeks of pay, extra stock and will be able to retain their laptops.

Even the most resilient Australian businesses such as grocery giant Woolworths revealed recently that it will cut several dozen jobs.

Then there are others like Australian technology giant Atlassian, which became the latest casualty of the “tech wreck” sweeping the sector, as it announced it was slashing 500 jobs from its global operations in March.

Some companies are being forced to shed their staff to survive turbulent market conditions.

Fintech Finder cut 15 per cent of its workforce with contractors, freelancers and permanent full-time workers all “impacted” earlier this year.

Meanwhile one of the big four accounting firms KPMG Australia had pinned 200 roles for redundancy after a drop in demand from clients due to worsening economic conditions.

A software firm called Thoughtworks, with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, laid off 100 employees and another software development company, Kinde, laid off 28.5 per cent of staff at the end of last month.

ASX-listed software firm Xero also announced that it was going to reduce its headcount by 700 to 800 roles.