Evri is planning to hire 5,000 couriers in a major recruitment drive, launched just weeks after announcing its merger with DHL’s UK e-commerce arm.
The new hires will boost the group’s self-employed courier network to 33,000, with jobs on offer across the UK, including Plymouth, Bury, Hastings, Dover and Scarborough.
Of the 5,000 new jobs, 1,000 will be permanent posts, with the rest being flexible and designed to meet peak period demand.
New recruits that agree to work five days or more can join Evri’s new Plus scheme, which offers added benefits, including paid holiday and automatic enrolment into a pension scheme.
Evri, which was formerly known as Hermes, was acquired by US private equity firm Apollo for around £2.7bn last year.
The company, which delivers more than 800 million parcels a year, currently has a team of more than 8,000 employees, 25,000 couriers, and operates a network of hubs and depots across the UK.
Last month it announced plans to merge with DHL eCommerce UK, the e-commerce logistics specialist of DHL Group, with the aim of becoming the UK’s largest parcels delivery business.
The merged Evri business will deliver over 1 billion parcels and 1 billion business letters annually. As part of the transaction, DHL Group will acquire a significant minority stake in Evri.
The deal will see Evri enter the UK business letter market for the first time, bolstering its competition to Royal Mail.
The new group will also include an expanded international capability for inbound and outbound parcels to complement Evri’s own international network by making use of DHL eCommerce’s expertise in cross-border parcel shipping and an out-of-home network of almost 150, 000 global access points.
Evri has spent £32m on improving its customer service offering and has seen an improvement in its ratings over recent years, but has said there is “more to do” to improve with customers continuing to report delivery issues.
Chief executive Martijn de Lange said: “We know that service, reliability and quality are critical factors for our clients and consumers, and so by expanding our self-employed network further, we remain focused on delivering in each of those areas.”
