Future Job Cuts?

[Silverlinky]

What is happening in the aviation sector (12000 BA redundancies, 20-30% of pilots made redundant) got me thinking and wondering if something similar could hit railway staff in months to come?

I'm aware that the DFT "took back" franchises, but this was for a period of 6 months wasn't it? I daresay commuter traffic to London especially is going to be hit for years to come, so could we see less trains, meaning we need less staff?

Franchising agreements and minimum service requirements would need to be changed of course, but sooner or later the government money tap will be turned off and reality will have to kick in.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

We are in a whole new world. Anything could happen. You could make the case that people will be ok on non crowded trains but not planes and hence redundancies will not be needed.

 

[Huntergreed]

I imagine the difference is trains are used much more widely for domestic travel and commuting. Generally planes are used for international holidays or international business trips, which are both off the cards for quite a substantial amount of time. I would make a guess that, once the lockdown is lifted, mainline trains will be reservation only, and whilst this would require planning, this may provide enough revenue to keep staff and running costs covered.

 

[Silverlinky]

We are in a whole new world. Anything could happen. You could make the case that people will be ok on non crowded trains but not planes and hence redundancies will not be needed.

But if the trains are non-crowded then the 8k-10k annual season ticket holders won't be travelling....so wheres the money?

That's the big thing...the revenue just won't be there. All those franchise agreements expecting returns, expecting money to be paid to the government...all gone. Less money through the fair box = big problems for TOCS.....cue cost cutting, and the biggest cost is the staff.

Maybe commuting in its pre-covid form will be a thing of the past.....working from home on a regular basis and conducting meetings via Zoom or Teams becomes the norm.

Like you say...a whole new world!

 

[TheSel]

Well, I'm sure that all the TOCs will have highly skilled 'Contingency Planning' teams, paid to foresee all eventualities and to plan how their company can best profit / lose least from it. Let's ask them.

 

[221129]

Maybe commuting in its pre-covid form will be a thing of the past....

Key word there is Maybe... the only fact is nobody actually knows what's going to happen.

 

[Qwerty133]

I imagine that they'll be some redundancies but that on the whole it'll be amongst staff who aren't essential for the operation of the service. I cannot see catering returning on many routes, I expect that revenue activities onboard trains will be reduced for some time, and that along with most larger businesses the current situation will have highlighted that some head office roles simply aren't necessary. At the same time there may be jobs created in other areas, such as additional cleaners as people continue to expect a higher level of cleanliness.
In terms of essential staff such as drivers I don't expect that they'll be significant numbers of redundancies even if demand doesn't return to previous levels however the availability of overtime may well be much more limited and recruitment much more limited than before.

 

[Silverlinky]

Key word there is Maybe... the only fact is nobody actually knows what's going to happen.

True enough, but people speculate, companies speculate. I used BA as an example in my opening post....they've decided that it will be years until they reach 2019 traffic levels so therefore they are looking for 12000 redundancies. How do they know whats going to happen?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can't see much of a cut in railway staffing. The railway is heavily understaffed and relies on overtime. This is a great opportunity to stop that nonsense if services are reduced for whatever reason.

As for removing commuting, providing for lots of commuters is expensive - look at all those Mercs and BMWs (well, Class 350s) sat on Camden Bank all day which are used for two or sometimes only one return journey a day. If we reached a situation where it worked to just run a Taktfahrplan all day from start to end of service with 8-cars on every train, that would be hugely, hugely cheaper. I don't know the precise accounts, but I wonder if that could actually make more money than providing for peakiness where most of the extra passengers are paying, per day, less than an Off Peak Day Return to use rolling stock that isn't used for any other purpose.

 

[RichT54]

True enough, but people speculate, companies speculate. I used BA as an example in my opening post....they've decided that it will be years until they reach 2019 traffic levels so therefore they are looking for 12000 redundancies. How do they know whats going to happen?

It could be something that BA have been wishing to do for some time and they see the present situation as an "opportunity", for example by reducing the number of staff on “legacy” contracts that have higher salaries and better terms. Then when/if the situation improves, they can recruit new staff on lower salaries and worse conditions.

 

[JonathanH]

True enough, but people speculate, companies speculate. I used BA as an example in my opening post....they've decided that it will be years until they reach 2019 traffic levels so therefore they are looking for 12000 redundancies. How do they know whats going to happen?

There are some obvious ways though that British Airways can cut back their operation - pulling out of Gatwick and only serving one Scottish airport would be easy ways to shed loads of costs without materially reducing their long term revenue.

 

[Carlisle]

the current situation will have highlighted that some head office roles simply aren't necessary..

I doubt it, most of those type of roles will have likely already been trimmed, merged or outsourced by the various TOCs in recent years if they weren’t deemed necessary

 

[GRALISTAIR]

At the same time there may be jobs created in other areas, such as additional cleaners as people continue to expect a higher level of cleanliness.

Hard to argue against that. I would definitely expect that. I know it is not as high paying - but ….

 

[Silverlinky]

I can't see much of a cut in railway staffing. The railway is heavily understaffed and relies on overtime. This is a great opportunity to stop that nonsense if services are reduced for whatever reason.

As for removing commuting, providing for lots of commuters is expensive - look at all those Mercs and BMWs (well, Class 350s) sat on Camden Bank all day which are used for two or sometimes only one return journey a day. If we reached a situation where it worked to just run a Taktfahrplan all day from start to end of service with 8-cars on every train, that would be hugely, hugely cheaper. I don't know the precise accounts, but I wonder if that could actually make more money than providing for peakiness where most of the extra passengers are paying, per day, less than an Off Peak Day Return to use rolling stock that isn't used for any other purpose.

Good points....there are opportunities to cut costs like that.....but this would then mean that LNW wouldn't need 87 class 350's and 14 class 319's......so they return some units to the leasing companies? Not that easy to get out of contracts like that. There would be a glut of trains sitting around in sidings either way, either leased and doing nothing or off lease and doing nothing.

Those (mainly) traincrew and sometimes other grades who have come to live on overtime won't be happy, and I suppose everyone can forget about the regular above RPI inflation pay rises every year too.

 

[thenorthern]

There will be job cuts yes it's inevitable but nothing like on the same scale as the airlines are having. The rail industry is much more regulated than the airline business and it's likely the government will make up any shortfalls in TOC revenue.

Once the lockdown is over trains will go back to their normal service levels are required by the franchise agreements meaning that the current staff will be needed to keep the trains running. The same can't be said for the airline industry.

 

[lammergeier]

Whilst I can't speak for other grades, I imagine the age profile of the driving grade and the sheer numbers of those approaching retirement will help protect many of us if redundancies happen as a slowdown in recruitment may well suffice. However, I just can't see the abject decimation of the industry as we are witnessing on the airlines. If anyone wants a truly eye opening read then check out some of the posts on pprune, there are some absolutely awful things going on such as mass redundancies, people qualifying as pilot with 100k of debt then contracts immediately voided and many senior staff worried if they'll ever fly again. Truly awful stuff. BA appear to be not letting a good crisis go to waste, those who remain are looking at serious erosion of pay and T's & C's.

 

[Qwerty133]

I doubt it, most of those type of roles will have likely already been trimmed, merged or outsourced by the various TOCs in recent years if they weren’t deemed necessary

I'd like to think that its a very low number of roles that would fit into that category but its almost inevitable that some level of unnecessary duplication or red tape is discovered when the fundamental ways of working have to be re-imagined at short notice as has happened as many back office type roles have transferred to (temporary) home working.

 

[matt_world2004]

I can't speak for other TOCs but even with a fall in demand the company I work for is planning to run a full service post lockdown as they estimate that trains will need to be run at no more than 20% seated capacity to enable social distancing . That is going to require either considerable fare rises or considerable government funding for quite a long time. if not the railways are not going to be viable. People aren't going to travel on full capacity trains even post lockdown .

You may even see recruitment increases in the railways as the government uses it as a form of public works scheme

 

[scotrail158713]

There are some obvious ways though that British Airways can cut back their operation - pulling out of Gatwick and only serving one Scottish airport would be easy ways to shed loads of costs without materially reducing their long term revenue.

Apologies for going off topic, but why should only one Scottish airport be served?

 

[Dr Hoo]

Well, I'm sure that all the TOCs will have highly skilled 'Contingency Planning' teams, paid to foresee all eventualities and to plan how their company can best profit / lose least from it. Let's ask them.

Can I ask what makes you so certain that this is the case?

(I can't immediately recall any job advertisements for this kind of business role in TOCs.)

 

[TheSel]

Key word there is Maybe... the only fact is nobody actually knows what's going to happen.

Absolutely. But I'll wager my mortgage that there will be plenty who will "come out of the woodwork" after it's all over, claiming they saw it coming, predicted it, tried to tell us but no-one would listen ... we all know the thing.

 

[TheSel]

Can I ask what makes you so certain that this is the case?

(I can't immediately recall any job advertisements for this kind of business role in TOCs.)

A lifetime in Service Management. There is a sub-discipline called 'Service Continuity Management'.

 

[Dr Hoo]

A lifetime in Service Management. There is a sub-discipline called 'Service Continuity Management'.

Was this career in the current British rail industry? Having been a Service Group Manager, Resources Manager, Profit Centre Manager, etc. (admittedly back in BR days) I haven't come across the term.

 

[Dr Day]

The true cost of the operating the network will be much more transparent now - may make it easier to identify potential synergies to support whatever was envisaged post-Williams. Can't foresee major BA-style cuts, but questions will inevitably need to be asked whether some of the current cost drivers are sustainable financially for the nation.

 

[TheSel]

Was this career in the current British rail industry? Having been a Service Group Manager, Resources Manager, Profit Centre Manager, etc. (admittedly back in BR days) I haven't come across the term.

No, I fully accept it wasn't. But it was in a multi-million pound industry that demanded very high availability of resource, much like the rail industry.

 

[Jimmy Foster]

Average TOC profit was under 3% even before the current crisis. So, anything more than a 3% reduction in passenger numbers means they all become loss-making and that means that whoever operates them, even if it is government directly, has to fundamentally re-assess the economics of running the railway. Passenger numbers won't bounce back quickly (people scared of public transport, fewer people in employment, more people working from home etc) but they might bounce back over the course of a couple of years so it would be short-sighted of governments to cut staff - that said, there will probably be a lot of pressure on constraining inflation-busting pay-rises.

 

[Qwerty133]

Can I ask what makes you so certain that this is the case?

(I can't immediately recall any job advertisements for this kind of business role in TOCs.)

I am almost certain that they won't as the government have shown that they'll bail out the industry in such circumstances meaning TOCs will see such roles as unneeded. Whether the DfT will employ people in such a role is a different matter.

 

[Bow Fell]

From discussions with other staff, and my personal perspective, I’d be more than happy not to get a pay rise again, if it meant some job security for everyone. I know given the situation Pay Rises shouldn’t even be mentioned!

But these are very unchartered waters.

However, do we really think we’re not going to see a return to a full pre-Covid timetable?

It might not be in 3 months or 6 months even, but I’d be surprised if some of these service reductions were permanent.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Apologies for going off topic, but why should only one Scottish airport be served?

Because BA is primarily a long-haul airline.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The true cost of the operating the network will be much more transparent now - may make it easier to identify potential synergies to support whatever was envisaged post-Williams. Can't foresee major BA-style cuts, but questions will inevitably need to be asked whether some of the current cost drivers are sustainable financially for the nation.

Something of note in Modern Railways this month is that, to paraphrase, "TOCs have realised that you can operate a punctual service when you don't jam the paths all full".

Time for a shift in approach? Fewer, longer trains? That does mean potentially fewer drivers and guards.

Looking the other way, if it is decided that the Government wants a job creation scheme, one thing they could do is add OBSs on all presently DOO trains.