Royal Mail is hiring around 22,000 temporary workers to handle the increased workload during the Christmas season. These seasonal roles often lead to permanent positions, the postal service said. The temporary jobs include 12,500 mail sorting roles in England, 1,243 in Scotland, 485 in Northern Ireland, and 355 in Wales. In addition, there are 5,000 delivery and collection positions across the UK, along with 2,100 temporary truck driver roles. These jobs are available at parcel hubs and mail centers nationwide, with a variety of shift times to choose from. Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail’s chief operating officer, said that the Christmas period is the busiest time of the year for customers, and the company has been preparing for it since January. To support the seasonal demand, Royal Mail is adding 7,500 new hire vans to its existing fleet of 6,000 vehicles. However, Royal Mail is currently under investigation by Ofcom, the postal regulator, due to its ongoing failure to meet delivery targets. Ofcom has set benchmarks requiring 90% of first-class mail to be delivered the next day and 95% of second-class post within three working days. Royal Mail recently confirmed it missed these targets for the second consecutive year. According to its latest quality of service report, only 75.7% of first-class letters were delivered the next working day over the 12 months ending in March, a slight decrease from 76.3% the previous year. For second-class mail, 90.2% were delivered within three days, down from 92.2% previously. In July, Ofcom updated Royal Mail’s delivery obligations to reflect the declining use of traditional letter mail. These changes allowed for second-class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays, which Royal Mail expected to fully implement by Christmas, according to Ofcom.