Magyar Posta: More Offices Closed, Staff Laid Off

The Hungarian postal service company Magyar Posta is temporarily suspending the operation of 366 post offices in 210 municipalities to reduce energy consumption. At the same time, the company announced on Friday a collective redundancy plan affecting 300 employees in management and service areas, the state news agency MTI reports.

Magyar Posta said that in the 101 settlements where more than one service points are operating, the remaining post offices will receive customers with increased capacity and more customer service counters. In the 109 municipalities where there are no other post offices open, services will be available via mobile post service.

The change will not affect the delivery of postal items to the home. The company stressed that the 740 or so employees affected will not lose their jobs, but will all be redeployed to other postal services.

At the end of September, the company announced the closure of 35 post offices in Budapest, and since mid-July, more than 100 small rural towns have already seen the closure of their own post offices, which will continue to operate as postal partners – in practice, the post office will move into the local convenience store.