Digital Era Forces Canada Post to Abandon Home Delivery

In just a couple of years, many Canadians will no longer have mail delivered to their door by Canada Post.

In a drastic move that will result in a loss of 8,000 jobs in Canada, the nation’s postal service will phase out door-to-door delivery over the next five years, which will provide “significant savings” through lower labour costs and fewer employees.

Here’s how Canada Post explains it:

Over the next five years, the one-third of Canadian households that receive their mail at their door will be converted to community mailbox delivery. This change will provide significant savings to Canada Post and will have no impact on the two-thirds of Canadian households that already receive their mail and parcels through community mailboxes, grouped or lobby mailboxes or rural mailboxes.

Roughly 11 million Canadians will be affected, it’s estimated. Canada Post cites a “rise in digital communications” as playing a major role in this decision.

 

 

In related news, Canada Post is raising the price of snail mail to as much as $1 per stamp, a change which is slated to take effect at the end of March next year.

These changes, which are part of a “five-point action plan” to save Canada Post, are expected to return the postal service to “financial sustainability” by 2019.