Australia Post recruits 6000 new staff ahead of holiday season

Cost of living pressures have guided Australians toward sales events to get holiday shopping sorted for cheap. Australia Post has prepared for a boom in online shopping deliveries by adding more capacity across its workforce.

November 2021 was the biggest month in Australian online shopping history with more than 21 million parcels delivered across the cyber sales period. It identified that 4.67 million households shopped online during the two-week period of November 21 to December 4 last year. Last year’s record November topped November 2020’s numbers by 13.6 percent. A further growth is expected this year with Australia Post expecting a 3 percent increase YOY for online purchases.

“These sales are the peak online shopping events of the year and we’re expecting to see the biggest November ever with millions of Australians bagging a bargain ahead of Christmas,” said Executive General Manager Customer & Commercial Gary Starr. “To ensure we get deliveries to people’s doors as quickly as possible we’ve been busy recruiting up to 6,000 new team members to help sort and deliver parcels, including weekends and twilight deliveries where they’re most needed.”

Various global factors including staff shortages and logistics delays are set to effect shipping this holiday season. “It’s a busy time of year so we’d encourage everyone to get organised and get their parcels in the post ahead of the Christmas rush,” said Starr. Consumers are expected to prepare well ahead of this festive rush. Australia Post’s report Inside Australian Online Shopping eCommerce update released September 2022 details this. Forty-one percent of shoppers surveyed intend to begin their Christmas shopping this month.

At the end of October, Australia Post announced its Christmas deadlines. Parcels must be sent by December 12, with express delivery giving a little more wiggle room with a deadline of December 19.

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