13/10/2009 - Postal strike to cost UK £1.5bn
A seven-day national postal walkout could cost the UK economy £1.5 billion, with online retailing being hardest hit, a report has claimed.
According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), high street retailers, magazines and professional services will suffer severe losses, while delays in receiving cheques could prove "fatal" to some firms.
The strike will have a major impact on business mail items, with a quarter of these mails being sent through different routes costing companies extra money.
With the proposed week-long strike, online retailers would face a £220 million loss, while magazines would witness a £8 million blow because of the loss of a week's subscriptions.
It is predicted that if a strike continued for more than a week the daily cost to the economy would be £300 million.
"Smaller businesses are likely to bear the brunt of these costs since 98% of small business post is through the Royal Mail, while only 70% of larger businesses use the Royal Mail and most of them use alternative mail sources," said the report.
However, as many firms have switched to electronic forms of transactions, the cost of the present walkout would be less than the national strike two years ago, the CEBR said.
Copyright © Press Association 2009
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