Royal Mail to recruit 16,000 Christmas workers

Royal Mail said the festive period was its busiest time of the year

Royal Mail is to recruit 16,000 temporary workers to help with deliveries and sorting over Christmas.

Some of the positions will be located in two parcel hubs in Daventry, Northamptonshire and Warrington, Cheshire.

There will also be jobs at 37 mail centres as well as five temporary seasonal parcel sort centres across the country.

Alistair Cochrane, Royal Mail's chief operating officer, said the festival period was "our busiest time of year and we plan all year round".

Delivery and collection jobs will also be available in local delivery offices across the country, the company said.

Royal Mail's two parcel hubs will be hiring more than 2,000 additional staff as they expect 1.7 million parcels a day to be processed across both sites.

Extra temporary space, equivalent to 20 football pitches, has been created across the five seasonal centres in Atherstone, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Daventry and Greenford in London.

The temporary recruits will help to sort the growing number of online shopping orders expected before they are taken to Royal Mail's 1,200 delivery offices.

Contracts will run from late October to early January 2025, also covering big shopping events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Parcelforce Worldwide is also recruiting additional drivers and indoor workers.

Almost 4,000 new vans, trucks and trailers will be added to Royal Mail's fleet in time for Christmas.