Canada Post is encouraging Prince George residents to shop and ship early this holiday season.

The postal company along with other couriers have been dealing with Christmas-like volumes since the pandemic began due to a surge in online shopping.

Local CUPW President, Clark Rasmussen told MyPGNow.com mail carriers across the country have been run off their feet.

“The records that were set in May across Canada was 2.1 million parcels delivered in one day so we are expecting to hit the two million mark a few times before Christmas.”

“We’ve been getting the word out there to people that customers should get a little ahead of the game as far as shopping before Christmas. Our volumes are definitely higher, we are managing here locally and across Canada, we will be doing weekend deliveries.”

Rasmussen added they are hiring more bodies locally to keep up with demand.

Last year, Canada Post hired over 2-thousand extra people before Christmas, mailing deadlines for packages haven’t been set yet.

In 2020, that number is expected to double between now and Christmas as the postal company is slated to hire 4-thousand extra workers and put a thousand additional trucks on the road to deal with the holiday surge, which includes Black Friday.

“The timelines for mailing packages haven’t been set yet but I would think within the next couple weeks we will have some type of timeline – you can guarantee this will be our busiest Christmas ever,” mentioned Rasmussen.

Earlier this year, Canada Post issued its Canadian e-commerce report, a link to it can be found here.