The shortage of labor in peak seasons has become a major problem for the express delivery industry. In the peak season of this year, the "Double Eleven", which started paying the final payment in advance on November 1, fired the first shot, and the pressure of employment has become more and more prominent.
On the eve of "Double Eleven", the business outlets of many express delivery companies, including the "Three Links and One Delivery", are "recruiting troops and buying horses" and urgently hiring couriers.
Express peak season peak is approaching
490,000 new temporary workers nationwide
Li Zhuangzhong is the person in charge of a certain express company's outlets. After 7 pm, his courier brother in charge of the outlets is still working in full swing, and trucks of express parcels are unloading.
Li Zhuangzhong told reporters that he has been hiring people since September, and offered a monthly salary of up to 10,000 yuan for some of the jobs, but the recruitment was not smooth, and he was helpless.
Li Zhuangzhong, person in charge of the Shenzhen Chegongmiao branch of Zhongtong Express: This year’s Double Eleven should be 3.5 to 4 times the usual amount. Normally we are divided into three shifts a day, but currently we are all 24 hours non-stop. Working collectively is equivalent to a machine that keeps spinning.
During the e-commerce promotion period, the express industry needs more grassroots employees, including customer service, warehouse sorters, couriers, and drivers.
However, the second half of the year often begins to enter the off-season of recruitment, and the number of recruitment needs and the number of job applicants in various industries have both declined month-on-month. Coupled with this year's epidemic, it has increased the difficulty of recruitment, and the huge employment gap cannot be met in the short term.
According to statistics from the State Post Bureau, in order to cope with the peak season of this year, the headquarters of major express delivery companies have strengthened their personnel, transportation capacity, venues, processing equipment, and information system capacity reserves. Currently, companies have added 490,000 temporary workers.
Calculated based on the country's approximately 4 million postal express employees, the proportion of new temporary workers accounted for more than 10%.
According to data from the State Post Bureau, during this year's "Double Eleven" period, the daily average express delivery volume is expected to reach 490 million, which is about twice the daily volume of business.
At the same time, this year's "Double Eleven" will likely extend from a single-day shopping peak to ten days or even half a month.
Wen Li, Senior Manager of Public Affairs of SF Express Co., Ltd.: From the perspective of the entire network, it is expected that during the peak period of Double Eleven, our single-day shipment volume will increase by 170%. Take the Shenzhen business area as an example. From the 1st to the 3rd, the overall business volume increased by 40% month-on-month, and some communities even increased by 100%, and some small unit areas even reached 300%.
Transshipment center expands production capacity
Intelligent equipment improves efficiency
The elongation of the sales cycle will form a greater test for the long-term combat capability of express companies.
Under the dual tests of "normalization of epidemic prevention and control" and "peak season", "black technology" equipment is increasingly applied to all aspects of express transportation.
Zhou Guangping is a courier receiving and dispatching staff. Usually, the daily delivery volume reaches about 130 pieces. At the peak of "Double Eleven", the single-day delivery reaches 160 pieces.
This year, "Double Eleven" he will use wearable smart devices to let him free his hands.
He only needs to scan the code through the badge scanner to identify the shipment information, and then through the online operation of the collection app on the smart watch, the collection can be completed quickly, and the average shipment can be shortened by 20 seconds.
In order to meet the "Double Eleven", many express companies have completed the comprehensive upgrade and expansion of venue automation equipment ahead of schedule.
The reporter came to the distribution center of a courier company in Songgang, Shenzhen, where the express delivery from the "Double Eleven" pre-sale period was being processed. The person in charge here told the reporter that from November 1 to 3, the total processing volume reached 15 million votes.
You Xinhe, Manager of ZTO Express Shenzhen Distribution Center: At present, we have invested 35 sets of new cumulative automation equipment, and newly built distribution centers are about 32. At present, the automated sorting equipment can reach 72,000 tickets per hour. The year-on-year increase is about 80%, and the next peak is expected to occur between the 12th and the 14th, with a single-day peak of about 11 million tickets.
To deal with the huge test of high peak, large flow and super strength, the preparation of equipment site and personnel is the foundation.
This site is the largest operation center of Shentong Company in Guangdong Province. In response to this year’s "Double Eleven" test, the transfer center took less than 70 days from the start of construction to production. The operating area exceeds 50,000 square meters. Automatic sorting equipment such as 3-layer cross belts, swing arms, and telescopic machines have increased the production capacity by 50% compared to the original site.
At the same time, various express companies have realized the continuous increase of multimodal transport by adding new operating modes of aviation network and high-speed rail network, and the overall express delivery capacity has been doubled than usual.
Blowout of overseas online orders
Oversea warehouses take turns
"Double Eleven" is a blowout period for global consumption.
In addition to further activating domestic demand, it has also promoted the hot sale of Chinese goods overseas, which not only accelerates the Chinese economy, but also activates world trade.
What about overseas logistics during the "Double Eleven" period?
Cao Guang is the person in charge of an international logistics company. She told reporters that in order to cope with this year’s "Double Eleven", they invested nearly 300 million yuan in warehousing, equipment, manpower, and transportation capacity. We have carried out a comprehensive expansion and digital upgrade with overseas warehouses, but what she did not expect is that the popularity of this year's "Double Eleven" is beyond imagination.
Beginning on November 1, German warehouses and Japanese warehouses have experienced liquidation in turn, and the volume of import orders has doubled than expected.
The reporter came to the distribution center of an international logistics company near Shenzhen Airport. Bags of goods were sorted by the staff according to the country and then loaded into trucks and sent overseas. On the eve of Double Eleven, the sorting volume here was About 13 times of the weekdays, the peak period of out of the warehouse will be concentrated on November 18th, 19th, and 20th. They will increase the temporary staff of 1,000 people and extend the working hours to cope with the increased volume.
Affected by the epidemic this year, the consumption scene has further accelerated the shift to online.
This trend will become more apparent during the upcoming "Double Eleven" and Christmas shopping season.
In addition to the traditional charter flight mode, containers carrying cross-border e-commerce export parcels have become the highlight of this year. Export parcels are shipped from warehouses to the Alashankou Comprehensive Bonded Zone at any time. After customs review and release through the electronic list, the containers will leave the comprehensive bonded zone. Ship to Europe directly from the railway station.