The most wonderful time of the year is also the busiest for Canada Post.
But officials say Canadians shouldn’t be worried about receiving their packages on time.
Officials at Canada Post say they’re on track to deliver everything that is due before Christmas, despite a 20 per cent increase in the number of parcels in 2017 compared to 2016 — which was already a record-breaking year.
To meet that goal, they have delivered around one million parcels per day since mid-November, including on weekends.
They’ve also added 3,000 seasonal workers, along with 1,000 vehicles.
Workers told Global News they’re also going into overtime “almost every day.”
Most of the packages are coming from an uptick of online sales – which has doubled the number of parcels over the past five years.
In fact, shoppers in the U.S. are set to spend more money online than at brick-and-mortar stores for Christmas gifts – and Canada isn’t far behind.
According to a poll from Ebates.com, Canadians were planning to buy 38 per cent of their gifts online, while a similar poll from Deloitte said they’d be spending 51 per cent of their gift budgets on the internet.
Postal workers told Global News it’s more parcels than they’ve ever seen before, and some post offices are overflowing.
“We’re a small store so we don’t have a lot of room and they just pileup around Christmas time,” Halifax post office clerk Dylan Chew said.
Canada Post’s Jon Hamilton said about 80 per cent of the parcels are picked up within three days – but the remaining packages can create some delays.
*with a file from the Canadian Press