Postal Service Makes Profit Despite Snail-Mail Loss

The Israel Postal Service reported an overall profit of 19.5 million shekels in the first half of 2016, as revenues from overseas packages offset losses in domestic mail services, Globes said on Wednesday.

The trend toward email and online shopping continued to erode regular mail revenues, which dropped two percent from the same period last year, from NIS 921 million to NIS 901 million. This, amid persistent customer complaints over slow mail delivery. An ordinary letter can take a week or more to reach its destination within the country.

The number of incoming overseas packages continued growing during the reported period due to increased overseas internet purchases, to 24 million packages, compared with 17.5 million in the corresponding period last year.

Economizing measures continued, as 470 jobs were cut during the first half of this year, under a recovery program conducted in cooperation with the workers’ committee and the Ministry of Finance.

The Postal Service claimed that waiting times have dropped 50 percent to an average of 9 minutes, compared with an 18 minute wait last year.