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While Canada Post recently resolved several years’ worth of labour strife, Denmark has conceded to what seems inevitable: it has ended letter delivery.
The last-ever letter was delivered Dec. 30, bringing an end to a 400-year run as digital forms of communication have devastated letter mail, not only in Denmark but in pretty much every country on Earth.
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In Denmark, the postal service PostNord delivered 90 per cent fewer letters in 2024 than in 2000.
“Almost every Dane is fully digital, meaning physical letters no longer serve the same purpose as previously,” Andreas Brethvad, a spokesman for PostNord, told CNN. “Most communication now arrives in our electronic mailboxes, and the reality today is that e-commerce and the parcel market far outweigh traditional mail.”
Denmark has ended letter mail delivery. (Tony Webster photo)
It’s a reality shaping up elsewhere. In Canada, statistics also show a decline, though not quite as precipitous as in Denmark: in 2006, 5.5 billion letters were delivered. In 2023, 2.2 billion, a 60 per cent decline.
The U.S. Postal Service delivered 50 per cent fewer letters in 2024 than in 2006, according to the CNN story.
Electronic payments, electronic invoices and email have supplanted the usual litany of bills that composed the bulk of mail.
In Denmark, PostNord will continue to deliver parcels, but for letters, Danes will deliver them to kiosks where private courier company DAO will deliver to both domestic and international addresses.
It marks a change in what constitutes a letter. Instead of impersonal bills, letters will become more intimate, more personal. It comes at a cost, however: customers must still be digital to pay for it.
“It’s very easy for us to access our mail on the phone or a website… but we forgot to give the same possibilities to those who are not digital,” Marlene Rishoej Cordes, a spokeswoman for the DaneAge Association, which advocates for older people, told CNN.
Around the world, particularly in underdeveloped countries, physical mail remains important. Approximately 2.6 billion people are offline and many more lack meaningful connectivity, according to the UN-affiliated Universal Postal Union, which also notes that rural communities, women and the impoverished are among the worst affected.
Denmark has accepted a reality Canada is still fighting. It can’t go on forever: according to Canada Post’s own financial documents, its losses since 2018 are more than $5.5 billion. Other forms of revenue, or fewer sources of losses, are inevitable.
Will we see mail move to every other day? Will we see Canada Post adopt postal banking? Will we eventually go the way of the Danes where letter delivery ends altogether?
Statistics suggest we won’t have to wait long to find out.
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