Beijing beefs up courier numbers to resolve delivery woes

More couriers are being hired and called in from other places to help deliver backlogged parcels in Beijing, officials said.

According to the Beijing Municipal Postal Administration, nearly 6,000 additional couriers were on duty on Wednesday compared with the day before. Among them, about 5,300 were outsourced and newly hired, and some 660 were called in from outside the capital to support the delivery efforts.

All suspended parcel delivery stations in Beijing have reopened.

According to the State Postal Bureau of China, some 10.18 million parcels were delivered in Beijing on Wednesday, about 10 percent more than on Tuesday.

November and December are the peak months for the parcel delivery sector. According to the State Post Bureau of China, the sector's regulator, 4.3 billion parcels were delivered between Dec 1 and Dec 12, a year-on-year increase of 5.6 percent.

Urged by the industry's regulator, major parcel delivery companies called in couriers from outside Beijing to help resolve the situation.

"We will work to overcome the labor shortage and urge parcel delivery companies to dispatch couriers from other areas to support Beijing," said Liao Lingzhu, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Postal Administration, adding that there are plans for an additional 3,000 couriers to be sent to the capital.

The administration drew up a work plan on Wednesday, setting up the goal of eliminating backlogged orders within two days and overcoming the shortage of couriers in a week to meet the city's basic delivery needs.