PostNL is to offer some of its self-employed parcel delivery workers a permanent job following a wave of criticism about the working conditions for freelancers.

‘We are not deaf to the ongoing discussion,’ the company’s packet delivery service chief Yme Pasma told Radio 1 news.

‘There are the real entrepreneurs who can negotiate with us and there are those who are entrepreneurs because they have no other choice… If that second group is in trouble because of changes in the law, we have to do something for them.’

‘We want to remove the negativity surrounding parcel delivery workers in the Netherlands,’ Pasma said.

The company will first talk to the unions, tax office and delivery workers themselves to work out terms of employment, he said.

The company has 1,150 freelance delivery workers and Pasma said he does not expect most of them to want a permanent contract.