PostNL will start emptying out mailboxes during the day to save on costs

Next month, national mail service PostNL will start emptying out most mailboxes in the Netherlands earlier in the day, instead of collecting all mail after 5 p.m. The privatized postal and parcel delivery firm is taking this measure from February because the affordability of postal services is "under increasing pressure" and will become loss-making this year, according to the company.

PostNL expects to save "millions of euros" with this maneuver, saying that emptying mailboxes during the day is more efficient. Key to the company's plan is making drivers who deliver packages also pick up mail during the day, starting as early as 9 a.m. In total, about 75 percent of roughly 10,000 letterboxes in total will be emptied out during the daytime.

In busy locations, such as shopping centres and train stations, the boxes will still be emptied after 5 p.m. PostNL also assured that nothing will change for letterboxes that can be used for bereavement cards and medically-urgent mail.

"Now the mail is collected in all mailboxes after 5 p.m., which means that thousands of mailboxes are emptied in a short period of time," explained Maurice Unck, director of the Dutch postal division at PostNL. That forces the company to deploy a massive amount of personnel, driving vans across many kilometers in a short period, "which is expensive, inefficient and unsustainable."

PostNL is struggling with several problems, including that its customers are sending fewer letters, while labor costs are high. The company is also struggling to find enough delivery staff, which results in late delivery of mail and compromised delivery quality.

PostNL lobbied the Cabinet to extend the legally mandated postal delivery times to two days for personal mail, and has decided to that business mail will be delivered within 48 hours instead of 24 hours from next year. But Economic Affairs Minister Dirk Beljaarts decided last year to refrain from a proposal to extend the delivery time for personal mail. A large majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, did not see this as a viable solution.

"Politics has postponed the decision. That is why we are now initiating measures that we can already take and that do not require an adjustment to the postal law," Unck indicated. The new measure does not immediately make letterbox post cost-covering either, he said, adding that politicians in The Hague still need to address their issues.

Unck repeated an earlier call for some form of support from the government to be able to continue delivering the ever-decreasing letterbox mail. During the winter holiday period, PostNL again noticed that fewer Christmas cards were sent than a year earlier. "Other countries intervened earlier. In a contracting market, it is not possible otherwise."