CEP Drivers - overworked & underpaid

Of course: we are all aware parcel delivery workers do not earn an executive salary. They are even paid below average compared to other sectors.

On average, full-time employees in the courier, express and postal industry (CEP) earn 3,022 euros gross per a month, while the average income in the German economy is 4,100 euros.

This is what the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) found out.

?Is that good or bad?

For me, the question is different: are the CEP companies at all willing and able to pay their employees more?

For many consumers, at any rate, free delivery of their online shopping products is a "nice-to-have", perhaps even the decisive impulse to buy in the first place.

Which has meant, especially in the last two years of crisis, that the cost pressure on postal and parcel services has grown considerably.

Even though energy and fuel costs for the cost-intensive last-mile delivery have exploded in recent months, CEP service providers cannot fully pass on their costs to customers.

After all, if the friendly parcel delivery man at the front door is to get more money, we would ultimately have to be prepared to pay more for it.

But we are not.

In a European comparison, Germany is one of the countries with the lowest delivery fees and the highest return rates.

This calculation cannot and will not work out in the future.

Because CEP services also pay for climate and environmental costs.

The view of growing industry turnover is not a counter-argument, because it is of course due to the growth in consignment volumes, which requires additional logistics resources.

That's why I always have some small change in the hallway, a friendly thank you in cash.

?I'm sure it will be received just as well as my parcel.