Royal Mail is looking for thousands of temporary workers to join the team across the UK in the run-up to Christmas.
With the nights drawing in, the air getting chillier by the day, and the festive season now practically within our sights, Royal Mail is gearing up for what is always its “busiest period” of the year by recruiting an army of 16,000 temporary workers all across the country to help its 110,000 already-employed posties sort the mail.
Although hiring for Christmas is , of course, what the postal service mainly has its sights set on, that’s not the only seasonal event it’s looking for extra help with, as many of the new temporary staff will begin work at the end of this month so they can cover Black Friday and Cyber Monday too.
The postal service says the festive season brings with it around double the normal volumes of parcels and stamped letters that need to be processed.
Royal Mail is hiring 16,000 temporary workers across UK in run-up to Christmas / Credit: Royal Mail
On top of this, the company says it’s also expecting an increased number of online shopping parcels to process this year too – which is why it’s hoping to welcome the tens of thousands of new staff on short-term roles before Christmas arrives.
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The temporary positions will be located in 37 mail centres across the UK, with a variety of different roles and shifts available.
A whopping 176,500 sqm of extra temporary space – which is apparently equivalent to 16 football pitches – has been created across five parcel sort centres ready for the season, Royal Mail has confirmed, while the company’s two new automated ‘Super Hubs’, one of which is based here in the North West in Warrington, and the other in Daventry, will also be hiring hundreds of additional staff.
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Up to 600 new temporary staff will join the ‘Super Hub’ teams, as Royal Mail expects two million parcels per day to be processed across both sites.
Contracts for the 16,000 temporary roles run from late October through to early January 2024, with the period for the additional temporary work including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but will be at its peak in December.
“We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas,” Royal Mail’s Chief Operating Officer, Grant McPherson, said as the seasonal recruitment drive was launched.
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“It’s our busiest time of the year and we know how important it is to deliver on time for our customers, so by planning ahead, hiring more people, vans and trucks, we are well-prepared to handle the increase in festive mail and parcels and deliver the high standards of service our customers expect from Royal Mail.”
Find out more about all the temporary seasonal roles available on the Royal Mail website here.
Featured Image – Royal Mail
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Luxury Manchester gym Blok confirms permanent closure after weeks of uncertainty
Daisy Jackson
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure, weeks after the doors to the premium fitness facility mysteriously closed.
Around a fortnight ago, members began to arrive to their classes to find the gym on Ducie Street locked up and a forfeiture notice on the door – but at the time, Blok said that it was fighting to reopen.
Sadly, in an email sent to members today, its founder has confirmed that the studio is now permanently closed.
Blok – which has several very successful sites down in London – said that its relationship with its landlord has ‘broken down to a point where trust has been lost’.
The gym wrote that it’s been left with ‘no workable way forward’.
They said: “BLOK Manchester was a space built by our loyal and dedicated community. Whether you joined us for one class or one hundred, we are deeply grateful. You helped create something genuinely special in an incredible city.”
In the immediate future, they said they’ll be supporting the team of fantastic trainers who worked here, as well as looking after members.
Members will be contacted within a few hours with options and refunds owed.
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure. Credit: The Manc Group
CEO and founder Ed Stanbury said: “While this marks the end of a chapter, we don’t see it as the end of our story in Manchester. We’re already speaking with developers about potential future sites and remain committed to returning to the city when the time is right.
“Thank you for being part of our story so far. Let’s shape the future of wellness. The mission continues.”
Commenting on Blok’s Instagram post – its first in almost a fortnight – people have been sharing their sadness at the closure of its Manchester site.
One person wrote: “beautiful space, beautiful staff and beautiful community.”
Another said: “Sending love to all the instructors !! :(((( gutted”
Someone else commented: “THE BEST CLASSES. I’m gutted.”
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Emily Sergeant -
24th October 2023 
