Lithuanian Post to increase service prices ^{lay off 600 employees}

"As customers are increasingly choosing alternative delivery methods and deliveries at post offices are decreasing, we have decided to reduce the number of employees," Lietuvos Pastas CEO Asta Sungailiene said in a press release.

The company plans to lay off around 600 of its 3,700 employees, with around 800,000 euros to be spent on their severance payments.

Sungailiene attributed last year's loss to a change in the revenue structure.

"Until recently, conventional postal services, i.e. those provided in post offices or by postal carriers, generated the largest part of the company's revenue," she said. "The revenue shrank by more than a third in the second half of 2021 and continues to shrink this year."

According to the CEO, the decline was mostly due to the scrapping of a VAT relief on parcels from non-EU, which led to the flow of these parcels falling by 64 percent in the second half.

Meanwhile, non-conventional postal services grew in year-on-year terms, with deliveries to parcel lockers up by 67 percent and international mail brokerage services up 126 percent.

Lietuvos Pastas posted a net loss of 6.4 million euros last year, versus a profit of 1.6 million euros in 2020, as revenue edged down by 0.8 percent to over 111 million euros.