Deutsche Post, the partially privatised German post office, will slash 7,500 jobs in its mail transport division over the next four years.

The cuts, which were agreed with German trade unions last week, will mainly affect drivers in the division.

However, a company spokesman said that there would be minimal redundancies, adding that the jobs would be cut through natural staff turnover and transfers to other parts of the company.

The state-controlled company also hopes that voluntary redundancies will account for some of the cuts.

The restructuring is being carried out to save Deutsche Post 100m euros ($88m) a year on its wages bill.

Outsourcing

In future, Deutsche Post will outsource transport of mail between the regional collection and sorting centres.

Mail distribution will still be done by Deutsche Post workers, but collection and sorting in German regions will be carried out by sub-contractors.

The company will keep a smaller mail transport division, employing about 4,500 workers until 2007.

Many drivers will be moved to the distribution division, which is currently under-staffed.

At the moment Deutsche Post employs more than 300,000 people.

Last week, the company reported that its first quarter profits had fallen by almost 6% to 539m euros, compared with last year.