Consignia, the UK state-owned post office, has refused to rule out possible job losses in Northern Ireland following its decision to axe 2,100 employees as part of a restructuring programme to cut costs.

The post office group, which employs around 5,000 people in the North, said it would review its operation in Northern Ireland in line with its group-wide goal of eliminating inefficiencies.

A spokeswoman for Consignia, which has a monopoly on postage services to the value of £1 sterling in the UK, said it also planned to "reassign" a further 7,300 people in other parts of the group.

"Consignia employs 200,000 people in the UK, the proposed redundancies represent about 1 per cent of our total workforce. We would anticipate that the majority of the redundancies will arise from natural wastage or voluntary redundancies," she added.

The spokeswoman said it was too early to comment on how many people in Northern Ireland might be affected by the restructuring programme and said the group would begin discussions with appropriate trade union representatives on the issue.

Consignia, until recently known as the Post Office, had previously warned of potential job losses following its latest set of less than first-class results.

Last year the company reported pre-tax profits of £66 million - some £88 million below its target figure.

Consignia has also been dogged by industrial action in recent years and is facing growing competition from both new operators in the postal services sector and from the growth of rival communication channels such as email and mobile phones.