Royal Mail, a British postal service and courier firm, plans to hire 33,000 extra workers for the Christmas period, which is almost two-third times more than the usual seasonal hiring. This is due to the increase in online shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Usually, the postal company hires 15,000 and 23,000 extra staff during the season, i.e. from October to January, for delivery vans, sorting offices, and data centers. Over 13,000 mail center sorting posts are available in England, 700 posts in Wales, around 1,400 posts in Scotland, and 500 posts in Northern Ireland.

The recruits will help over 115,000 postmen and women in permanent roles. Moreover, nearly 1,000 of the temporary workers will work for the new Covid-19 testing kit collection team of the company.

Sally Ashford, the Chief HR Officer of Royal Mail stated that the company will continue to deliver Christmas for its customers during these difficult times. This will help people across the country to celebrate the festival while staying safe during these unprecedented times.

The British postal service was putting in efforts to capitalize on the increase in online shopping, which is accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier in October, the company started a "Parcel Collect" service through which it collected mails and parcels from people's homes. The new scheme that was tried in parts of the west of England, will be a 72p cost per parcel plus postage charges and will be available every day except Sunday.

The Parcel Collect service will help online shoppers return unwanted items, which Royal Mail described as a major change in the daily delivery since its launch in 1852. In September, UK's industry association for online retail, IMRG warned that if customers leave ordering presents until the last minute, the companies may struggle to cope.

Andy Malcahy, the Strategy and Insight Director at IMRG assured that the shoppers don’t need to do panic shopping but also stated that it would help if the shoppers spread the shopping and do a lot more in November and a bit of it now.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54684865