Jersey Post job cut threats are ‘scaremongering’
Thursday 27th May 2010, 2:58PM BST.
Christopher Bee of HubEurope
JERSEY Post’s announcement of job cuts and reduced deliveries is ‘classic scaremongering’ according to one of its would-be competitors.
HubEurope, which is applying for a licence to compete with the States-owned Jersey Post in the lucrative fulfilment industry, says that the truth is that the company is inefficient and unfit for purpose.
On Monday, Jersey Post chairman Mike Liston said that scores of jobs could go as early as this summer and that mail deliveries could be slashed from every day to three-per-week because of increased competition.
He said that Jersey Post faced insolvency within two and a half years unless it took drastic steps.
But HubEurope chief executive Christopher Bee said that the company was just trying to desperately cling to its Island monopoly.
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Well said that man! Give Mr. Bee a gold star. Finally, an ounce of common sense.
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This is the company that risked losing play.com as a client for not reducing its postal rates.
Well said ! The island needs competition
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maybe mr bee would be less eager to start trading in jersey if our regulators had some backbone and insisted that his company should provide a spectrum of services similar to jersey post rather than cherry pick just the lucrative parts. ah, the follies of capitalism.
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Perhaps Mr. Ozouf is scarmongering when he talks about compulsory redundancies.
I’ll pay Mr. Bee 39p to take a letter to L’Etacq for me.
I wonder if he can do it and say it was cost effective?
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Not sure who is being scared though or what reaction is expected? Are Jersey Post expecting their long suffering customers to say we don’t want any competition as the thought of you being put through your paces and (heaven forbid) improving your offering is too much for us to bare?
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yes id agree with mr bee jersey post are just trying to scaremong the public maybe you guys should be asking how much this company are paying there staff ie finance director £250,000 a year no wonder there bust maybe mr bee can operate from the market out with old in with the new
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May i start by saying that i am in favour of competition when the playing field is level. This playing field is by no means level. Jersey post has to pay in the region of 250k for their licence and part of that is they are obliged to run the uso which is a non profit making part of their business. So the fulfilment mail revenue funds this. How much will hubeurope and citipost pay for their licence….. 1k and with no uso to run. So lets make it level then and have hubeurope and citipost paying the same for their licences and running a uso. Therefore and contrary to what mr bee states this is cherry picking and whereby mr bee thinks jersey post is scaremongering and that it is desperate to hold on to the monopoly it seems this is more like a desparate attempt for both hubeurope and citipost to gain a slice of the fulfilment cake that jersey post has helped to grow to where it is today.
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It does not matter at all who is responsible.
Post three times a week plus ADSL that runs at 0.5Mb/s on alternate Sundays when there is an R in the month will send what is left of the finance industry down the plug hole inside five years!
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@7
In reply to your comments on the USO and the differing costs of the licenses _ I’ll repeat what I hve previosuly said:-
The JCRA has chosen to protect all letter traffic for Jersey Post – neither HubEurope or Citipost would be allowed to touch it in the event we are licensed. This is an important point as some 30 million items are protected for Jersey Post. Jersey Post are paid for every delivery they make…not just for the Royal Mail but also for all of the Royal Mail competitors i.e. TNT, UK Mail, DHL Global Mail etc – they pay per item. In addition there is a stamp on all outbound mail – already money in Jersey Post’s bank before they even touch the letter.
It is very easy to be mislead by certain facts in the postal sector – there are skilled spin doctors who will portray certain information as fact and ignore other facts.
The Post Office have a special agreement with customs to allow the movement of mail and parcels, this also allows the pre paying of VAT, no other company is allowed to take advantage of this. Jersey Post do not have to use the same customs clearance methods as ANY other courier company – meaning that they have a lower cost of administration on all of their parcels and probably fail to collect all of the appropriate GST payable on every parcel – thereby increasing the GST burden on the rest of the Island. Jersey Post ‘lent’ £4m to JPID to launch Ship2Me and Me:Mo, amongst other things, and moan about the fact that they ONLY have £9m in the bank.
Do not be led on the emotive issues here – there are many more worrying facts.
Finally – and in answer to the first part of your question, if the JCRA allowed us to operate in the area of local deliveries – we would be very interested to discuss it.
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To Howzat
The only reason they run the post at a loss is because they are very badly run with way to high overheads because they have never had to be efficient as they have a monopoly.
They still have the same huge overheads yet have far less post every year thanks to the internet they have done nothing about this. There is also the question about whether we should have 6 days post a week and two pick ups a day now when we send far less letters a five day a week post and one pick up in the new internet age makes more sense. The USO needs to change asap.
Please also note the e-commerce industry grew in spite of Jersey Post not thanks to it. They did not create any of the companies like Play. Looking at the responses to the JCRA from the e-commerce companies they are being held back by Jersey Posts monopoly and support the new companies entering the market. Do we want the e-commerce companies to stay in Jersey employing over 1000 people or do we want them to move to Guernsey, Switzerland and the UK?
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sorry jersey post the day of paying big wages for a loss making idea has gone nobody i know post letters or packets email is the way ahead go greener
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Howzat said:
‘the fulfilment cake that jersey post has helped to grow to where it is today.’
I say the fulfilment industry grew despite Jersey Post.
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True to the point observations from nos 3,4 and 7. If Jersey post lost a significant part of its profit making side of the business to competitors how could it possibly support a £5 million loss making uso delivery operation without drastically reducing staffing levels and as a consequence a significant reduction in it’s delivery service.This statement is not scaremongering I can assure you look at the simple economics of it.Competitors to Jersey post would have no interest in providing a 5 or 6 day week mail delivery service to every property on the Island as the huge cost involved would wipe out their market share profits from fulfillment business and lucrative contracts with banks/financial institutions.
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@13 – DH
A) The USO does not cost £5 million
B) The JCRA are not allowing competition in the lucrative letter market that you refer to in terms of banks and financial institutions
C) I would be interested in your economic view on daily deliveries in Jersey…. 45 sq miles, 500 miles of roads.
D) How do you think other jurisdictions finance their USO obligations without a fulfilment industry?
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Henry 5 Where do you get the idea of big wages at Jersey Post your joking
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Lots has been said about jersey post’s profit and loss but what about their employees who are having meetings telling them one thing then another in the JEP. Has a thought gone to them and their families?
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@ 12
Well in that case then Jersey Post prices have not inhibited the growth in the industry one bit, contrary to the JCRA statement.
Must also be the excellent Quality of Service Jersey Post provide for these companies which in turn leads to their customers coming back online to order more goods. CUSTOMERS SATISFIED!
If the competition can offer cheaper prices then so be it, but after all “You will get what you pay for” Risky????????
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