Too little demand: Swiss Post plans to discontinue same-day service at subsidiary notime

In order to remain financially sound in the long term and to provide a high-quality universal service without taxpayers’ money, Swiss Post continuously reviews the cost effectiveness of its services. This also applies to notime’s same-day service. Since 2018, Swiss Post and its subsidiary notime have been offering same-day delivery in the conurbations around various cities in German-speaking Switzerland and Western Switzerland. From the outset, however, few customers have made use of this option and there is a lack of willingness to pay for the service. Notime makes annual losses. After intensive review, Swiss Post has come to the conclusion that, also in the longer term, it could only offer the service from notime at a loss. For this reason, it intends to cease operations of notime (Schweiz) AG with effect from the end of September 2025.

Same-day has always remained a niche service

“Together with notime, we have examined various options for making the service profitable,” says Johannes Cramer, Head of Logistics Services and member of Swiss Post Executive Management. For example, Swiss Post has repeatedly analysed different price and cost structures. However, the fixed costs are too high to make operation of a same-day specialist financially viable. The service has remained a niche product and there are no signs of a trend reversal with regard to demand for same-day services.

Swiss Post offers business customers alternatives

In the event of closure of notime (Schweiz) AG, based in Zurich, Swiss Post would, where possible, offer business customers the option of integration into Swiss Post’s existing delivery solutions. Swiss Post will be contacting all of the approximately 20 business customers who make use of same-day deliveries from notime. The same-day services offered directly by Swiss Post to business and private customers would not be affected by the planned discontinuation of notime. The SameDay Swiss afternoon and SameDay Swiss evening services, for example, would remain in place. Notime was founded in 2014 and started operations in 2015. In 2018, Swiss Post acquired a majority stake in the company. It acquired the remaining shares in 2021.

Swiss Post intends to support affected notime employees

The planned closure of notime’s operations is expected to result in the loss of 143 full-time equivalents (FTE) in German-speaking Switzerland and Western Switzerland. These jobs are predominantly distributed among around 550 hourly-wage earners at an average level of employment of 20 percent who deliver consignments. They also include 39 monthly-wage earners. Notime and Swiss Post are doing everything they can to ensure that the expected staff reductions are implemented in as socially responsible a manner as possible. Johannes Cramer emphasises: “The planned steps are difficult for us. In the longer term, however, loss-making operations would not be responsible from a business perspective. We will closely support the impacted employees and offer them the best possible assistance. We are making every effort to offer as many employees as possible continuing employment at Swiss Post.” For employees who cannot be offered continuing employment in the event of closure, Swiss Post is planning to draw up a redundancy plan together with its social partners. A consultation process will start at notime on 8 May 2025 and will continue until 30 May 2025. Staff at notime can take this opportunity to make proposals about how the planned job cuts could be prevented, how to reduce the number of redundancies or how to mitigate the consequences.

Information:

Swiss Post Media Unit, Stefan Dauner, +41 58 341 00 00, presse@swisspost.ch