Right in the middle of the busy Christmas card- and package rush comes news that Norwegians may no longer get any mail delivered to their mailboxes at home. A government-appointed commission has concluded that it’s simply “no longer sustainable,” either for the state or the public.
Even though the price of a stamp for both domestic and international letters or cards has risen from around NOK 5 in 1990 to as much as NOK 37 (USD 3.40) today, postal revenues don’t cover the costs of delivery to residential addresses around the country. Daily delivery has already been halted, with Norwegians now only getting mail at home either two- or three days a week.
That’s likely to fall to just once a week until mail delivery at home is scrapped entirely, except for those with physical or digital limitations. They may continue to get delivery once a week, while everyone else will need to fetch letters, cards, newspapers or other printed matter at small postal facilities already set up in many grocery stores in Norway. The vast majority of actual post offices have already been closed, with only a few remaining in major cities.
Their days seemed numbered, too. Staffing has been cut to a minimum, as has service, even though postal rates keep climbing. By demanding that customers pay more for less service, the Norwegian postal service known as Posten has arguably contributed to what’s now being described as a major decline in postal volume in recent years. The biggest factor, though, is the widespread use of email or other forms of digital communication.
Norway’s government minister in charge of transport and communications, Jon-Ivar Nygård of the Labour Party, is also responsible for postal service. He agreed after receiving the commission’s report and recommendations that the decline in the numbers of cards and letters sent through the mail “has been extreme … which means the cost per letter sent has become very high.”
Nygård called postal services in Norway “an important pillar of Norwegian society,” but stressed how digitalization has led to Norwegians sending steadly less “traditional post.” It’s thus “necessary,” he said, to re-evalute the entire delivery system.
Commission leader Elisabeth Aarsæther said Norway should still have “a solid postal system,” so that residents can still send and receive mail around the country. She also noted that a postal system is important in troubled times and part of national preparedness, but should still be streamlined by “reducing the obligation of delivering letters” directly to their recipients. Posten, the commission stated, can then “evaluate” whether Norway’s roughly 3,000 mail carriers can be transferred to other jobs. The country’s powerful labour unions will undoubtedly involve themselves in that evaluation.
The commission also urged re-evaluation of national regulation of the postal service. That could allow other commercial operators to compete against Posten in a new system for delivery of letters and other printed matter. There already is lots of competiton in delivery of packages.
Several Norwegian newspapers expressed resignation in their editorial reaction to the proposed cuts in mail delivery. Dagsavisen, for example, agreed that the current system to fulfill the state’s obligation to deliver mail “is not sustainable,” but noted that the commission’s conclusions represent a “dramatic break from a long state tradition and service.”
“Posten må fram (The post must be delivered),” the paper added, “but in the future it can be up to all of us to collect the mail ourselves. The nation faces a paradigm shift that can also accelerate the digital shift.”
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
