Itella Group will begin statutory labor negotiations next week in Finland. The negotiations will affect both administrative and production functions. All in all, the negotiations will concern around 2,200 people. According to an initial estimate, approximately 390 permanent employees’ current job will be made redundant.
The majority of the redundancy need applies to the Helsinki Metropolitan area, but other localities will also be affected. It is being planned that manual mail sorting in Rovaniemi and Kajaani be transferred to the Oulu Post Center for automatic processing. It is expected that the customer service center operations in Savonlinna will be discontinued, as responsibility for the telephone service regarding transportation services for the elderly and the disabled is being transferred from Itella to the municipalities. In the Lahti region, the statutory labor negotiations will concern Itella Logistics. The majority of Itella jobs in these localities will remain after the negotiations.
In Finland, Itella Group employs 23,500 people, providing jobs in every municipality in continental Finland. The administration's statutory labor negotiations carried out earlier this year resulted in 70 people being made redundant. Those negotiations concerned data administration, procurement, financial administration, marketing and communication. The negotiations being launched now include the majority of those administrative and support functions that were not included in the previous negotiations. In total, the already completed negotiations and those being launched now will reduce the number of Itella’s personnel in Finland by nearly two percent.
Background for the negotiations
By cutting costs and enhancing operations, Itella is preparing itself for the ongoing structural change in the postal industry. Furthermore, the global economic downturn has had a considerable impact on the demand for Itella's services. During the first part of the year, logistics and post volumes have substantially decreased in comparison to last year.
Also in the long run, Itella faces significant challenges to be able to maintain the national service as it is. In the next few years, the entire European postal industry will face a major structural change as postal industry competition will be promoted through a directive reform. In addition to communication going electronic, there will also be legislative changes, both of which will affect labor needs. With the ongoing mail sorting network development and long-term investment program, Itella will create the preconditions for long-term operating opportunities.
“It can be seen in Itella’s operations that customers, such as newspaper and magazine publishers and mail order companies, are facing difficult challenges. Our only alternative is to adjust our operations to correspond to the customer demand and needs at the moment as well as in the long term. Postal services are funded entirely with income received from customers; Finland uses no tax money to finance postal services,” says Jukka Alho, President and CEO.
“For the personnel, the statutory labor negotiations are an extremely unfortunate matter. Although we have already been preparing for the necessary changes, this will not alleviate the disappointment of the personnel when regrettable decisions are made that concern them personally. We aim to use all opportunities to cushion the impact of the changes. In our experience, both the age structure of the personnel and relocation opportunities to other assignments inside the company have always brought some relief to the situation,” says Jukka Alho.
More information:
Jukka Alho, President and CEO, tel. +358 20 451 5600
Contact person in Itella Communications: Ulla Parviainen, Communications Manager, tel. +358 400 947 855
