Postal company PostNL is to offer all its letter delivery staff a permanent contract – both those already working for the company as freelancers and new employees. In addition, a further 1,000 temporary contracts will be switched into permanent ones.

The aim is to retain staff and attract new people, Bob van Ierland, who heads up the post division, said.

‘We hope the prospect of a permanent contract will also make new delivery staff enthusiastic about working for us,’ he said. ‘And we need to do this, given the current tight labour market.’

The company did not say if parcel delivery workers would also be offered a normal contract.

Some 37,000 people work for PostNL, which in June agreed to an 8% pay rise for its 16,500 post delivery staff spread over two years.

Fines

In February, PostNL was fined €2m by consumer watchdog Autoriteit Consument & Markt (ACM) for failing to deliver mail on time in 2019.

According to the sector norm, an average of 95% of the letters posted in the Netherlands have to be delivered on the following delivery day. PostNL did not manage more than 94.34%.