Struggling British postal operator Consignia says it will axe another 17,000 jobs and return to the old name of Royal Mail as it unveiled an annual loss of £1.1 billion sterling.
The job cuts would bring total job losses announced across the group to about 32,000 - or about 16 per cent of the Consignia workforce.
The firm will lose its monopoly and faces the first phase of liberalisation in its mail markets next year. It is losing £1 million a day and blames its plight on a lack of investment in the operation over the years.
It said it would change its name to Royal Mail Group by the end of 2002, only 15 months after spent £500,000 on renaming itself Consignia - a name criticised as meaning nothing to the public and as a sign of weak management.
Consignia said the loss was mostly made up of exceptional costs from restructuring, but also included a £318 million loss on its day-to-day operations.
Overall turnover rose 3.6 per cent to in the year, but growth was outstripped by a 4.8 per cent rise in costs.