Hongkong Post ends permanent roles for new staff to cut operating costs, mulls branch closures

Hongkong Post has announced it will stop offering permanent civil service contracts to new staff in a bid to cut costs, as its chief has projected a continued decline in mail traffic. Hongkong Post. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. The embattled postal service will instead offer two-year contracts to new staff, including mail carriers and postal officers, whose probation periods are set to end during or after September, Postmaster General Leonia Tai told a radio programme on Tuesday. “We are facing a continued decline in mail traffic, with fewer people sending mail in traditional formats. We expect the drop to continue and even widen in the future,” Tai said in Cantonese, adding that volatile geopolitics also added to the post office’s woes. “Against this background, we are really unable to offer permanent contracts to staff who are going to complete their probations,” she said. “But we also considered that terminating their employment right after their probation period would be a huge blow to them. We wanted to minimise the impact as a responsible employer and didn’t want them to suddenly lose their jobs,” she added. Tai said about 200 staff members were expected to be affected, adding that a meeting was held on Monday to explain the new arrangements to Hongkong Post staff and the union. Hongkong Post is an official government department, though it is expected to cover its own operating expenses. ‘Optimise the network’ Hongkong Post’s finances were strained amid a declining mail volume in recent years. Last year, it reported a record-breaking operating loss of HK$821 million – up from HK$554 million in 2024 – while mail traffic dropped 12 per cent year-on-year to 611 million items. Amid a trade spat with Washington, the posting of packages to the US has also been suspended for over a year. The Legislative Council last month passed a HK$4.6 billion allocation to support Hongkong Post’s operations over the coming three years. A Hongkong Post post office, on February 5, 2025. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Tai said on Tuesday that Hongkong Post was reviewing its operations, including the current mail delivery model that runs between Monday and Friday. “We’ve heard comments that post office opening hours seem to overlap with working hours. We will look at how to optimise the network, including whether to close low-traffic branches or shorten operating hours,” she said. The postmaster also said that Hongkong Post has been developing e-commerce services but noted that the market is highly competitive. The extra revenue may not be able to cover the postal services’ operating costs in the near future, she added. Asked about Hongkong Post’s announcement on Tuesday, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun said that any organisation must clearly communicate its new employment arrangements to its staff and ensure the changes are made according to the law. Hong Kong Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun attends the first meeting of the eighth-term Legislative Council (LegCo) on January 14, 2026. File photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. HKFP has reached out to the Hong Kong Postal Workers Union for comment. As of May this year, Hongkong Post employed around 2,200 mail carriers and 1,300 postal officers, according to a government reply to a lawmaker’s enquiries last month. Mail volume handled by Hongkong Post shrank 44 per cent from 2019 to 2025, according to a paper submitted to LegCo in May. Last year, the government called off a HK$510 million renovation project of the Air Mail Centre at Hong Kong International Airport, citing a projected drop in airmail volume over the coming years. Safeguard press freedom; keep HKFP free for all readers by supporting our team Support HKFP | Policies & Ethics | Error/typo? | Contact | Newsletter | Transparency & Annual Report | Apps Make a one-off donation. Hans Tse is a reporter at Hong Kong Free Press with an interest in local politics, academia, and media transformation. He was previously a social science researcher, with writing published in the Social Movement Studies and Social Transformation of Chinese Societies journals. He holds an M.Phil in communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before joining HKFP, he also worked as a freelance reporter for Initium between 2019 and 2021, where he covered the height - and aftermath - of the 2019 protests, as well as the national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020. More by Hans Tse