Royal Mail has started its seasonal recruitment drive. Workers are being sought by Royal Mail to help sort the Christmas post and the increasing amount of online Christmas shopping.
Around 20,000 seasonal roles are available across the UK in Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide, primarily to help sort the additional Christmas volumes of mail. The positions are available from late October through until early January 2018.
Around 16000 people are needed to work in mail centres, distribution centres and data centres across England. This includes around 1000 roles available at a new super Parcel Sort Centre at Atherstone in Warwickshire. There are also around 1000 posts in Scotland, around 300 jobs in Wales and 500 roles in Northern Ireland. The temporary recruits will help to sort Christmas cards and parcels and online shopping orders before they are taken to around 1400 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 900 extra sorting staff and 1200 drivers throughout the UK.
Royal Mail’s chief operations officer, Sue Whalley, says: “Christmas continues to be our busiest time of year. We plan all year round to help ensure we deliver the best possible service for UK consumers and businesses at Christmas. We are continuing to make a substantial commitment in additional resources including the recruitment of thousands of temporary workers to handle the festive mailbag and the growing market of online Christmas shopping.”
It’s an annual ritual. Royal Mail always brings in a great many extra staff at Christmas to deal with the bulk of peak. But this year it is interesting because the CWU and Royal Mail are locked in a dispute about pensions and working conditions that could well lead to serious strikes between now and Christmas. It’s likely that the staff they hire for Christmas won’t be part of the union.
