Couriers pull up their Christmas stockings
With just a matter of weeks left until Christmas, the world's major courier companies are busy making preparations to ensure important packages get to their destination on time.
Preparations for the festive period - one of the busiest times of the year - start many months in advance for all the courier companies that offer services through online parcel delivery specialist Parcel2Go. And with just a few weeks left, the industry's leading firms have unveiled details of how they're going to cope with this year's rush.
UPS, which offers a range of standard, saver and express parcel services through Parcel2Go, has predicted it will deliver 527 million parcels globally between late November and Christmas - a 10 per cent increase on 2011. To cope with demand the company is hiring 55,000 temporary workers.
FedEx, which has European and world courier service available through the Bolton-based parcel delivery firm, expects to handle about 280 million packages over the same period - up 13 per cent on last year. It has said it will hire 20,000 seasonal employees to get packages out on time. Parcelforce has also announced it will take on extra staff to cope with increased demand.
"All of the courier companies that offer services through Parcel2Go are well underway with their Christmas preparations," said Richard Mercer, marketing director at Parcel2Go. "With more people than ever expected to purchase presents online, demand for shipping services is once again set to reach a peak in the days before Christmas.
"As always we're urging people to organise deliveries as early as possible but all of our courier partners are aware that many shoppers will once again leave things until the last minute, which is why they're making such thorough preparations."
