The Wirnhiers open the mailbox twice a day. Once in the morning – once in the afternoon. Actually, the two receive regular mail. But that hasn’t been the case for two weeks. It seems that there is a problem in Pöring: the mailboxes remain empty – and that could possibly remain the case for a while.
It is early in the morning in Pöring when a pickup truck drives down the narrow side street and comes to a stop in front of Franz Wirnhier’s house. “That’s the ice cream man, not the post office,” says Wirnhier. We are currently waiting in vain for the latter. “There should have been a letter with my wife’s insurance card by now, one of the neighbors is waiting for business mail.” And other residents from Pöring, Zorneding and the surrounding communities are also expressing their dissatisfaction with the currently rather unreliable delivery of Deutsche Post AG. Peter Susott is one of them. He lives just a few streets away from Franz Wirnhier and says that he has “not received any mail since October 27/28”. How does he know that there is a problem with the delivery? He is waiting for two announced letters that should have arrived long ago.
Too few staff and a high sick leave rate. The deliverers work on the stop
“We don’t have enough staff. Many are sick. At some point, the body just can’t take it anymore,” says a resigned postman in Zorneding as he swings onto his bike and rides away. And in the Zorneding post office, too, one hears similar things in this regard: there are too few deliverers and the few who are still working are doing so on the cue.
The labor market has been changing since the Corona pandemic. Not only the gastronomy is therefore looking for staff, the Deutsche Post is also groaning under the shortage of workers. When asked why there are currently delivery problems in Zorneding, the Munich press office of the “Deutsche Post DHL Group” admits that there are problems with letter delivery in Bavaria in particular. The reason is primarily significantly higher staff shortages due to corona infections. “Due to the very tense situation on the labor market, these higher staff shortages can only be compensated for to a limited extent by hiring additional workers.” In order to avoid delivery failures over several days, Swiss Post uses the so-called corona emergency concept at locations with particularly high staff shortages. Among other things, this stipulates that – in the case of a working day delivery – the households only receive letters every second working day. Although the concept leads to longer letter delivery times, it prevents delivery failures over longer periods of time.
In order to counteract the shortage of staff, Swiss Post has initiated recruiting measures
But is the concept used at all in Zorneding? After all, the delivery times here are extremely long, as local residents report. According to the press office, the concept will be adapted based on the respective situation. Accordingly, a few days of delay are always conceivable – but a waiting period of two weeks is very surprising. “You have to see what could be causing that.” Sometimes it can also simply be that Deutsche Post is not responsible for the delivery – this is often the case with magazines in particular.
Franz Wirnhier can understand a lot of what both the delivery staff and Deutsche Post AG are complaining about. After all, many companies are currently facing personnel problems. “The poor postman is just the smallest wheel on the wagon!” To ensure that the situation changes as quickly as possible, Swiss Post initiated extensive recruitment measures a few months ago. For this purpose, 3,000 people are currently being hired per month and 10,000 permanent contracts have been made since July, according to the press office.
Franz Wirnhier will not stand still until deliveries return to normal. He has also contacted the district councilor Thomas Huber (CSU) and Mayor Piet Mayr (CSU). According to Wirnhier, the latter had already sent a complaint to Deutsche Post AG asking for the fastest possible remedy.