When the government stops delivering letters.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carrino.

Across Europe, as in the U.S., postal services are struggling with the decline in letter volumes

as communication moves digital. In Denmark, the decline has been particularly steep. So the publicly

owned National Postal Service, Post Nord, is getting out of the letter delivery game entirely after 400 years.

The service will instead focus solely on package deliveries starting in 2026.

While a private firm will step into the gap, the letter business will likely continue to shrink.

So as digitalization grows, what is the future of printed letter

delivery? In the Danish capital, the BBC's Adrian Murray has been finding out.

Hello Canutson is loading parcels into a van, ready for her morning postal round.

In March, she changed job after almost three decades as a postal worker.

The letter decline has been exceptionally fast, she says.

It's been hard to watch as well.

We've worked hard to get those letters out and been proud

of delivering them. Inside this enormous warehouse, machines sit through piles of letters,

corporate mailouts and magazines. Only 15 years back, there were several letter sorting

depots, but this is the last one run by

National Postal Service, POSMord. Since 2000, the volume of letters it handles has slumped

by 90%. And by the year end, mail deliveries by the State Own Postal Service will become a thing of the past.

A third of its workforce, around 1,500 staff, are being let go.

Devad Ramek is chair of 3F Postal Union.

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