Danish postal service to stop delivering letters after 90% drop in numbers
The Danish postal service has said it will no longer deliver letters from next year and will cut a third of its staff.
“At the end of the year, PostNord will deliver its final letter ... to focus on its role as the premier parcel delivery service in Denmark,” the company announced in a statement.
PostNord said the restructuring was due to digitalisation leading to a huge decrease in the number of letters sent, with a 90% reduction since 2000. A total of 1,500 out of 4,600 jobs would go, it said.
“In 2024, the number of letters fell by more than 30% compared with the previous year and this trend will continue,” the company added.
PostNord lost its obligation to deliver post to the whole of Denmark last year in a move towards market liberalisation, meaning the company also lost much of its financial support.
The distributor DAO, which won the contract to deliver public service mail last year, has said it is ready to strengthen its letter distribution service.
“We can still send and receive letters everywhere in the country,” the tranport minister, Thomas Danielsen, told the Ritzau news agency.
Many postal services are struggling across Europe due to digitalisation. The German postal service, Deutsche Post, also announced on Thursday that it would cut 8,000 jobs in Germany to reduce costs.
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The core letters business of Britain’s Royal Mail has also been ravaged. The UK communications regulator, Ofcom, has proposed Royal Mail deliver second-class letters on alternate weekdays potentially saving the company hundreds of millions of pounds.