Brazil's Correios seeks more than 8,000 extra postal workers

Brazil’s Postal and Telegraph Company, Correios, has launched a major recruitment campaign, offering 8,346 full-time vacancies. The process comes following many months of delay, as the company suffered a number of problems with its day-to-day recruitment system.

From today, candidates can register as part of a national tender for jobs in three categories. Some 2,272 jobs are available as commercial clerks, 5,060 as delivery staff and 1,014 as mail sorting and screening personnel.

Jobs are being offered for locations in 345 municipalities in all regions of Brazil, although many of the jobs are to replace workers who have retired.

Correios, which is celebrating its 42nd anniversary this week, said the recruitment programme would help strengthen its 107,000-strong workforce “significantly”, increasing its efficiency and quality of service.

The company’s recruitment process has been the subject of much delay, not least because of two changes of leadership in the past year.

Staff shortage

Alberto de Mello Mattos, who heads up Correios’ international business division, explained to Post&Parcel today that around 6,000 workers retired last year, but because of the problems with the company’s recruitment process, they could not be replaced at the time.

“Now we have a shortage of about 10,000 staff,” he said, explaining that without sufficient staff, the capacity of the Correios infrastructure to process mail volumes was being limited, but that with the growth in Brazil’s population the company’s delivery staff are being particularly stretched.

“The Brazilian economy has been growing a lot, so we are seeing huge growth in mail volumes and we need more staff to retain our quality levels.”

Regional postal union Sintect/DF said on Sunday that Correios’ customers had been suffering delays in mail services as a result. Sintect/CAS said last week that members meeting in Brasilia had agreed to strike if Correios failed to start its recruitment process by April 19.

Now that the recruitment process is underway, candidates are expected to register by April 5, with assessments due to be carried out on May 15.

Correios is working with the University of Brasilia’s Centre for Selection and Promotion of Events (CESPE) on its selection process.

The jobs being offered are based on a 44-hour, six-day week, with a base monthly salary of 807.29 reais (about $486 USD), with benefits to include bus passes, child care assistance, medical and dental coverage and pensions are also being offered.

Growth

According to 2009 figures, Correios handles more than 34m items a day, or 8.3bn items a year.

With the growth in the country’s economy, Alberto explained that Brazilians were now buying more products online, and particularly from international online retailers – leading to a “huge” growth in e-commerce volumes and international parcels.

He said that Correios has already been investing in technology to improve its operations, but has now formed a group to examine new technologies, including processing equipment and RFID systems.

Brazil’s unions have been complaining in recent weeks and months at postal workers being “overloaded” because the company’s recruitment process had ground to a halt.