Belgian postal operator bpost is strengthening its workforce by recruiting Dutch postal workersin co-operation with PostNL, as part of the Dutch postal organisation’s ‘mobility programme’ to
help employees to find new jobs outside the company.The first Dutch postal workers have already started working in Belgium. PostNL explained: “According to bpost, it is difficult to find new postmen in certain parts of Flanders, such as theborder regions of Antwerp and Limburg. There is a lot of competition from other sectors. Also manyBelgian mailmen are close to retirement age, making it necessary to attract new people. With theirextensive experience, the Dutch postmen are an attractive proposition for bpost.”
Until recently, bpost faced labour shortages in regions such as Waasland, East Flanders (Dutchspeaking northern Belgium). Even though the workforce is now back to full strength, more people arestill needed. Bpost has therefore started a recruitment campaign and hopes to recruit postmen inthe province of Zeeland, among other areas.
The Dutch postal workers will receive training to become familiar with bpost’s operationalprocesses, including Belgian sorting and distribution systems.
At the beginning of this year, PostNL scaled back its original mail restructuring programme,reducing the number of compulsory redundancies in favour of mostly voluntary departures, as itattempted to respond to the continuous slump in mail volumes. Since 2006, PostNL’s ‘mobilityprogramme’ has helped over 7,000 employees to find new jobs outside PostNL.
