Brazil · BUSINESS
Key Facts
- —The target Correios has opened a new voluntary redundancy programme. Press reports put the target at up to 7,000 departures; the company has published no formal figure.
- —The deadline Applications close on 30 September.
- —The last attempt The first round targeted 10,000 and drew about 3,100 — reported as 3,075 and as 3,181. Correios extended the deadline to 7 April, closed it on the 8th, and said it would not extend again.
- —The hole Preliminary accounts show a net loss of R$5.4 billion — about US$1.04 billion — in the first half of 2026. Financial expenses alone jumped 179% to R$1.6 billion, some US$309 million.
- —Why voluntary Staff are hired by public examination and, under a binding Supreme Court ruling, cannot be dismissed without a formally reasoned act — which makes mass compulsory redundancy slow and legally contested.
- —What it is competing with E-commerce logistics in Brazil is now a private, price-competitive market that Correios once had largely to itself.
A voluntary programme is a company asking. What happens when not enough people say yes is the part nobody has written down.
The new Correios redundancy round wants about 7,000 people to leave. Brazil’s state postal operator opened it this week, with applications closing on 30 September, against a preliminary first-half net loss of R$5.4 billion — roughly US$1.04 billion. The last time it made this offer it aimed at 10,000 and got about 3,100, after extending the deadline.
What the Correios redundancy round is asking for
Press reports put the target at up to 7,000, with a window closing on 30 September; Correios itself has not published an adhesion figure for this round. Note which way the comparison runs: the previous programme aimed at 10,000 and missed by about 70%, so this target is smaller than the last one, not bigger.
The earlier round is the useful benchmark and it is not encouraging. It drew about 3,100 employees — reported variously as 3,075 and 3,181 — after Correios extended the deadline to 7 April before closing it on the 8th, saying it would not extend again.
The financial context is a preliminary net loss of R$5.4 billion, about US$1.04 billion, in the first half of 2026 alone, with financial expenses up 179% to R$1.6 billion, some US$309 million. Full-year losses are being projected near R$10 billion, about US$1.93 billion. Payroll is the largest controllable line in a logistics business, and in a company of Correios’s size and age it is the only line that can move fast enough to matter.
Why it has to be voluntary
Correios employees are hired through public examination. They are ordinary labour-law employees rather than tenured civil servants, but a binding Supreme Court ruling requires the company to give a formal, reasoned justification for every dismissal — which makes mass compulsory redundancy slow and legally contested. A state company cannot simply announce job cuts the way a listed one can.
So the instrument is an offer, and an offer only works if the terms beat staying. For an employee with two decades of service and stability, a severance package has to be very good indeed — which is why voluntary programmes at state companies routinely attract the people the company can least afford to lose and fail to attract the people whose roles have disappeared.
That is the structural problem sitting under the number, though this round is narrower than the last: it is aimed specifically at staff in units already slated for closure, so Correios is choosing the pool even if it cannot choose the people. The offer runs to as much as R$459,000 per employee, about US$88,700 — which is what it takes to make leaving beat staying.
The business underneath
Correios spent most of its history with something close to a monopoly on Brazilian parcel delivery, particularly to the addresses nobody else wanted — the interior, the small towns, the places where a delivery costs more than it earns.
E-commerce changed that. Private logistics operators built networks around the profitable half of the country and left the unprofitable half where it was. Correios now competes on price in the dense urban corridors that subsidised everything else, while retaining a universal service obligation in the places that never paid for themselves.
That is a structurally losing position, and it is not one a redundancy programme fixes. Cutting 7,000 posts changes the size of the loss. It does not change the shape of the business that produces it.
Which is the question the government has not answered in public: whether Correios is a commercial company that should compete, or a public service that should be funded as one. The redundancy round is what happens while that question stays open.
Why this matters if you are in Brazil
If you sell online in Brazil, Correios is still the carrier of last resort for a large share of the country’s addresses. A smaller workforce in a network with a universal service obligation shows up as slower delivery outside the major cities before it shows up anywhere else.
If you live outside the big urban centres, the same point applies to anything you order — and to a range of services, from documents to medicines, that quietly route through the post.
And if you follow Brazilian public finances, note the number rather than the drama. R$5.4 billion — US$1.03 billion — in six months from one state company is real money in a year when the government is arguing that it is far from a fiscal crisis.
For comparison, that half-year loss is roughly a twelfth of what Brazilian households lost to online betting across the whole of last year. Neither number is the reason the other exists, but they belong in the same conversation about where the country’s money is going, and both are currently being managed one announcement at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many jobs is Correios cutting?
Press reports put the target at up to 7,000 departures, with applications closing on 30 September 2026; Correios has published no formal figure. An earlier round aimed at 10,000 and drew about 3,100 after its deadline was extended to 7 April 2026.
Why is Correios losing money?
Preliminary accounts show a net loss of R$5.4 billion, about US$1.04 billion, in the first half of 2026, with financial expenses up 179%. It competes on price with private operators in the profitable urban corridors while carrying a universal service obligation to deliver everywhere else.
Can Correios make staff redundant compulsorily?
Not easily. Employees are hired through public examination and, under a binding Supreme Court ruling, cannot be dismissed without a formally reasoned act — which makes mass compulsory redundancy slow and legally contested. Hence the voluntary offer.
Connected Coverage
Sources: Correios; Ministério das Comunicações; Agência Brasil; Folha de S.Paulo.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
Read More from The Rio Times