This comes after a group of 23 Pos Riders in Melaka said their contracts were terminated recently during Phase One of the national recovery plan.

“Pos Rider is a crowdsourcing programme, with the aim to provide support to Pos Malaysia’s courier delivery personnel, specifically during peak periods.

“The Pos Rider programme played a critical role during the movement control order (MCO) last year when parcel volume surged as online shopping increased, creating over 1,400 job opportunities,” Pos Malaysia said in a statement today.

“While demand for online purchases continues to grow for courier services this year, the competitive courier landscape has resulted in an increase in e-commerce players establishing their own delivery services.

“This has led to a reduction of market dependence on parcel delivery services among local courier players, causing parcel volume to stabilise,” it added.

Further, it said, due to the decline in mail volume, Pos Malaysia now had excess resources to deliver courier items.

“As such, we needed to reduce the external outsourcing programme and prioritise our own employees to deliver the courier items as this will also enhance their earnings through overtime and protect their livelihoods.”

Therefore, Pos Malaysia had decided to optimise available resources to maintain a sustainable business.

“The first phase of the rationalisation (exercise) takes effect beginning July 1 across all states except in (the) Klang Valley, Sabah and Sarawak.

“We have issued a 14-day notice to all affected Pos Riders, which complies with the cessation clause as stipulated in their contracts,” Pos Malaysia said.

The group of Pos Riders in Melaka had protested against the sudden termination of their contracts, saying it did not follow the terms in the contract.