Postal workers saddled with wrong-delivery costs: lawmaker

Based on data from Korea Post, postal workers paid a total of about 25 million won ($22,000) for dealing with delivery errors, a lawmaker said Monday.

According to the data acquired by Party for Democracy and Peace Rep. Kim Kyung-jin from Korea Post, there were more than 700 instances of wrong delivery in 2017, each costing approximately 30,000 won to 40,000 won each to be re-sent. 

Most delivery errors occur when postal workers mistype the recipient information or when mail center employees sort out parcels manually. Because incorrect delivery does not fall under the company’s compensation regulations, the post office employees are obliged to pay for the costs.

Rep. Kim said couriers should not have to pay for the re-delivery costs when most of them are already burdened by stress from their heavy workload. He added that “It is necessary to develop new system improvement measures to decrease the employees’ burden.”

To pay for the re-delivery, most post office employees have been using fundraising, vending machine profits, and spot bonuses.

In response, the Korea Post is considering shouldering the cost of quick shipping costs for misdirected post from early next year.

By Lee Tae-hee (taeheelee@heraldcorp.com)