Poland's Post Office Still Delivering Mail for Polish Christmas Past
Because of a large labor shortage of letter carriers and staff in the post offices sorting mail, the Polish post office is still delivering mail from the year 2007 Christmas season. It hopes to have all the pre-Christmas delivered in Poland by January 15, 2008.
The exodus of Polish workers to western Europe is having a significant impact on many services provided in Poland. And one of the basic services suffering under an uncontrollable burden is the Polish postal system.
In spite of between 1.5 and 2 million being unemployed, there is a significant shortage of workers and lack of applicants to fill the jobs in the postal system.
In Warsaw alone there is an immediate need for a minimum of 700 people. The number really needed is 1200.
Economists who are predicting that Poland will continue on a high growth rate path have not explained how that can be done when there are not even enough people to fill jobs basic to keeping an economy moving. They point to high consumer spending and ignore the fact that businesses are having difficulty getting product to sell. And they are having difficulty in getting people to sell what they have.
There are businesses in Warsaw that ordered product in early November 2007 for sale during the 2008 Christmas season that still have not seen it. Those products, shipped in early November, are somewhere in the postal system. They represent lost sales and unproductive capital.
Even though the postal system indicates that it hopes to deliver the Christmas mail by about 15 January, no one has not said anything about what will happen to the remainder of the mail that went into the system after Christmas. And it does not say if mail delivery will get back to normal or suffer a decline in service level as people leave the country.
During December of 2007 some companies that had a problem using the mail service tried to use couriers. But couriers were generally not able to meet the demands. They have labor problems, too. They tended to limit their services to those who had pre-existing contracts with them.
The Polish postal service is a service that has been criticized for many years and tends not to get much attention or sympathy from the Polish public. But it is getting it now and the attention that it is getting is not good.
A basic requirement for ant economy to function is to be able to send and receive mail. That takes people. And the Polish Government has not done anything yet to stem the loss of people, who might want to work, to the West.
It would appear that of the 1.5 to 2 million people unemployed, some of them should be able to qualify as letter carriers or sorters. But it appears that they are not lining up at the doors to apply for work and are more content to get benefits from the Government rather than to work at gainful employment.
Where rain, sleet and snow has failed to stop letter carriers from their appointed rounds, unemployment benefits and the lure of the salaries in the West have.
