UK parcel operators and Amazon are preparing for the busy Christmas period when parcel volumes usually reach their peak, hiring thousands of temporary workers and adding more capacity to cope with the increasing volumes during the festive season.
Yodel announced that it is now hiring 7,000 part-time and full-time workers across the UK preparing for this year’s peak Christmas period. The independent parcel carrier is set to recruit over 800 directly employed drivers who will be provided with Yodel branded uniforms and a liveried van. In addition, it is also looking for around 3,000 owner drivers, who will be required to provide their own vans. Both groups of drivers will be based at their local service centres and provided with hand held computers to help plan their routes and scan parcels as they go on their delivery and collection rounds, the company said.
A further 3,000 self-employed couriers will also be hired using their own cars to deliver and collect smaller parcels from customers. Self-employed couriers are based from home and carry out deliveries in their own neighbourhood. Their working hours are more flexible, making it the ideal choice for anyone who requires a job that can fit around other commitments, such as child-care, hobbies or other part-time work.
While these are seasonal positions for the peak period, many of the roles are expected to become permanent thanks to the increase in Yodel’s client base and growth in parcel volumes. Yodel’s training programme will ensure workers are fully prepared for the peak period and beyond. For the courier and owner driver roles, Yodel also offers support in the form of insurance and vehicle lease packages, as well as guidance on the paperwork and benefits associated with being self-employed.
Yodel chairman Dick Stead said: “Our recent research has shown that the 2015 Christmas period is set to break the mould once again, with nearly four times as many people planning to take advantage of the Black Friday online promotions. Our recruitment and training will support this increased demand and ensure that both our retail clients and shoppers have an enjoyable Christmas.”
The company added that it spent the first half of 2015 optimising its network to cope with the Christmas demand, including opening new strategically placed ‘super’ service centres. It has also made significant investments in IT, mechanical handling, sorting equipment, training and fleet to improve operational processes and efficiency.
Hermes UK is also preparing for the upcoming Christmas period as it plans to hire 3,000 extra couriers and 115 additional field managers, a Hermes spokeswoman told CEP-Research. At its recently expanded Warrington hub, where the company expects to handle one million parcels per day during this year’s peak period, it will be hiring 400 additional workers to support the operations on site. For more capacity, the company will also deploy 700 new trailers and 150 new sub depots, the spokeswoman said.
“Our preparation for Peak 2015 began as soon as Peak 2014 drew to a close. We are working alongside our clients to finalise our plans by analysing forecasted volumes and confirming collection schedules. In addition to Warrington, we have also added another 125 sub depots to our network and increased the number of scanners and handheld terminals across the business. During the peak season, we will also have 200 additional advisors across 19 client sites to deal exclusively with any enquiries; 3,000 more couriers and our money back delivery guarantee campaign will also return this Christmas,” Martijn de Lange, COO at Hermes, said.
Royal Mail announced earlier this month that it has launched its annual campaign to recruit over 19,000 temporary workers to help sort additional Christmas volumes across the UK between mid-November and early January 2015. As in previous years, the majority of seasonal positions will support Royal Mail’s permanent 123,000 postmen and women who sort and deliver the mail all year round.
Around 14,000 workers will be recruited across Royal Mail’s core network in England, to work in mail, distribution centres and data centres. In addition, 1,340 people are needed in Scotland, 560 in Wales and 550 in Northern Ireland. The recruits will help to sort Christmas cards and parcels before they go to around 1,400 Delivery Offices for postmen and women to take out on their rounds.
Royal Mail Group’s express parcels business, Parcelforce Worldwide, is also recruiting around 2,600 extra people throughout the UK, including drivers and indoor workers.
“The recruitment programme is part of Royal Mail’s substantial financial investment in additional resources at Christmas to help ensure we provide the best possible postal service to our customers throughout the UK,” the company explained.
Meanwhile, the e-commerce giant Amazon also started hiring 19,000 seasonal workers in the UK to work at its fulfilment and customer service centres over the Christmas period, in addition to 700 permanent positions the company already created this year.
“We are 100% focused on providing an exceptional customer experience and to ensure that we maintain this high level of service during the Christmas period, thousands of seasonal associates will join our teams across the UK,” John Tagawa, Amazon’s Vice President of UK Operations, said. “There are many people who take up seasonal roles each and every Christmas. We look forward to welcoming them back as well as the many new faces who will join us for the first time.”
With 700 jobs created so far this year, Amazon now employs more than 7,800 people at its eight UK fulfilment centres.
“We have created thousands of permanent roles with competitive wages and great benefits in our fulfilment centres in the last five years and everyone who took up those roles joined us, initially, on a temporary basis,” Tagawa continued. “As we continue to expand our operations in the UK, we are confident that hundreds of people who join us this Christmas in a seasonal role will have the opportunity to stay on with us on a permanent basis.”
Amazon’s eight fulfilment centres across the UK are located in Doncaster, Dunfermline, Gourock, Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Rugeley and Swansea Bay. The company is also opening a new fulfilment centre in Dunstable creating a further 500 permanent jobs while a second fulfilment centre in Doncaster will open next month, creating more than 300 new permanent jobs over the next three years.
