Amazon and Royal Mail create 32,000 Christmas jobs

Amazon and Royal Mail are to create 32,000 temporary jobs for the Christmas season in anticipation of a surge in demand.

Amazon plans to hire 13,000 extra people to work in its eight distribution centres and customer service centre in the UK during the festive season, while Royal Mail is looking for 19,000 additional workers who will start in the middle of November and work until the end of January.

The announcement from Amazon comes on top of the company looking for 1,000 permanent employees and confirming that it will launch a same day pick-up service.

The new jobs are likely to be the first of a wave announced by retailers and logistics companies as they prepare for a rush of online orders ahead of Christmas.

Amazon said that on the busiest day last Christmas it received orders for 4.1m items, the equivalent of 47 per second.

John Tagawa, director of UK operations, said: "The thousands of seasonal associates who join us at this time of year play an integral role in helping us deliver an exceptional experience for our customers during this incredibly busy time.

“We’re excited to be creating 13,000 seasonal jobs, hundreds of which will lead to permanent, full-time positions.

"We have created more than 2,000 new permanent roles at our fulfilment centres in the last two years, taking our total permanent fulfilment and customer service centre workforce to over 6,000 employees.”

The Government said the jobs could provide "young people their first job and an opportunity to take that crucial first step on the career ladder".

Esther McVey, the Employment Minister, said: “With vacancies increasing and unemployment falling, these figures are a further proof that businesses are increasingly confident about the UK’s growing economy.”