Media company Mediahuis is hoping to attract newspaper deliverers by offering a signing bonus of 1000 euro, delivery manager Martijn Perez van Bakel told Dagblad van het Noorden. According to Perez, all ages are welcome, since the company already employs deliverers who range from 15 to 87 years old.
Previously, the signing bonus was 300 euros, but that was not enough to attract new workers in the sector. People who already work as deliverers and bring in someone else are also eligible for a 1000 euro bonus. The bonus will be delivered in three installments, provided that the deliverer keeps their route for at least six months.
While investing that amount of money might seem excessive, Martijn Perez explained that his company risks a much worse outcome in the case the deliverers shortage ends up causing delays and subsequent cancellations of the service.
The campaign to attract newspaper deliverers is active at the national level and comes at the moment of the greatest shortage of newspaper deliverers ever recorded, especially in the northern provinces.
In Friesland for example, according to Perez van Bakel, there are currently about a hundred ‘open neighborhoods’, reported the Friesch Dagblad. Subscribers who live in those underserved neighborhoods are still receiving their newspapers, but not always before 7 am, as it is custom. In the region, particularly Leeuwarden, Drachten and Sneek are affected by the shortage.
This is not Mediahuis’s first effort trying to attract and retain delivery staff. Earlier this year some of its local branches started a trial in which new deliverers received a 40 percent salary increase, on top of their regular 10.76 euro per hour wages. The trial was ultimately unsuccessful in the long run.
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