DPD hires 6,000 and invests £200m for online boom

Delivery giant DPD is aiming to tap into the explosion of online shopping, triggered by the coronavirus lockdown, recruiting 6,000 new staff and investing £200 million in its network.

The company, which is owned by French state-owned postal service La Poste, said the investment will ensure it can continue to match the soaring demand for online delivery which its retail customers are predicting.

DPD, which claims to have over 6,500 customers in the UK, will recruit 2,500 new full-time staff working in depot, hub and management positions, and 3,500 new delivery drivers.

It is also planning to invest a £200m to expand its next day delivery capabilities, comprising £100m on new vehicles, £60 million on building 15 new regional distribution depots and £40m on technology.

DPD chief executive Dwain McDonald said: “We are experiencing the biggest boom in online retailing in the UK’s history and we are making this unprecedented investment in our infrastructure and people to ensure we can continue to meet the high levels of demand for our services.

“DPD has been one of the fastest growing major companies in the UK in the last 10 years, due to the growth in ecommerce. But what we have seen in recent months is potentially a much more significant shift in behaviour, and we believe elements of it will be permanent. As a company, we’ve been dealing with rapid growth and ongoing investment cycles for a long time, but this is a very significant moment.

“I do think the high street will bounce back from where things are now, but we have to base our modelling on our conversations with retailers and their projections. It looks like there will remain a much greater reliance on ecommerce in the future – that’s going to be our ‘new normal’.

“This investment and expansion mean that we will continue to be right there for our retail customers, alongside them, with the capacity to cope with the demand they are seeing online.”

TOPICS:coronavirus online shopping parcels