Royal Mail reports £1bn loss after postal workers’ strikes

Parent company IDS posts loss of £748m as it blames industrial action and failure to increase productivity

Royal Mail has reported a £1bn loss, with bosses blaming strike action by workers and a failure to increase productivity for its poor performance during a year in which it cut 10,000 jobs.

The poor performance led International Distributions Services (IDS), which owns Royal Mail, to report an overall loss of £748m for the year to 26 March. That compares with a profit of £577m a year earlier.