Jobs bonanza at Royal Mail, Amazon and JLR

The postal operator Royal Mail, the online giant Amazon, and the car maker Jaguar delivered welcome news on the job front yesterday.

Royal Mail is recruiting 18,000 temporary staff between mid-November and early January to deal with the Christmas surge in postal deliveries, notably Christmas cards and presents. The new recruits will work in mail and distribution centres across the UK and will grow its workforce in the short-term by 14 per cent to 130,000.

However, this is 2,000 fewer people than last year because of the long-term decline in people sending Christmas cards.

Meanwhile, Amazon has started recruiting for nearly 1,000 permanent and temporary employees at its huge new fulfilment centre in Dunfermline, Scotland, that is due to open in the coming months.

The online retail giant is hiring across areas, including operations, IT, human resources and engineering and Amazon said that 750 permanent jobs will be created, in addition to a further 1,500 temporary roles during peak periods. The 1m square foot site will help Amazon to serve more customers than its existing centre in Glenrothes.

Amazon has also enlisted the help of Stagecoach to lay on two new bus services that will connect the Amazon fulfilment site with Dunfermline town centre, Townhill, Queen Margaret Hospital, Duloch Park and Abbeyview.

Elsewhere, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the car maker owned by the Indian Tata Motors, said it planned to create 750 new jobs in the Midlands by investing £355m inan engine factory at i54 South Staffordshire, a business park near Wolverhampton.