Pandemic drives Swiss Post parcel deliveries

All-time record for Swiss Post: it processed more than 200 million parcels last year. Keystone/Laurent Gillieron

The state-owned Swiss Post processed a record number of parcels last year, but the downward letter mail continued.

Parcel deliveries increased by 9.6% to 202 million in 2021, according to the state-owned company.

“This rise is due to the boom in online retail, which has been driven in part by Covid restrictions and working from home,” it said on Tuesday.

Compared with pre-pandemic 2019 this represents an increase of about 35%.

Despite the record in the parcel delivery, the volume of letter mail dropped 3.3% to 1.8 billion last year.

The company said the latest developments vindicated a decision for a reorganisation of the logistics unit and helped to create an additional 809 jobs. It pledged to invest around CHF1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in its sorting and delivery infrastructure by 2030.

Its parcel delivery monopoly ended in 2004, and its letter delivery monopoly has been eased. Steps are currently underway to privatise its financial retail unit.

Swiss PostExternal link, including PostFinance and a bus service company, has about 39,000 employees.