MyWayHow many delivery drivers are there? Official figures for 10 countries
6 min read
Short answer: the United States has 983,300 light truck drivers on payrolls and 1.1 million jobs in the couriers and messengers industry. The United Kingdom has 295,000 delivery drivers and couriers, Germany 239,954 employees in postal and delivery jobs, and France 164,500 short-distance drivers and delivery workers. Germany alone moves 4.6 billion parcels a year. The figures below come from each country’s statistics office or postal regulator. Each country counts in its own way, so read every number with what it covers.
Delivery drivers by country
| Country | Delivery drivers | What is counted | Source, period |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 983,300 light truck drivers; 68,640 couriers and messengers | Wage and salary jobs; self-employed and app-based drivers are not counted | BLS, May 2025 |
| United Kingdom | 295,000 delivery drivers and couriers, 77,800 of them self-employed | People in work, main job | ONS Annual Population Survey, July 2025 – June 2026 |
| Germany | 239,954 in postal and delivery jobs | Employees with social insurance; mini-jobs and the self-employed are not counted | Bundesagentur für Arbeit, March 2026 |
| France | 164,500 short-distance drivers and delivery workers | Employees and self-employed | DARES, 2024 |
| Netherlands | 101,000 car, van and taxi drivers | People in work, taxi drivers included | CBS, 2025 |
| Canada | 90,490 delivery service drivers; 32,095 couriers and messengers | People employed | Statistics Canada, 2021 Census |
| Australia | 85,500 delivery drivers; 41,700 couriers and postal deliverers | People employed, main job | Jobs and Skills Australia, February 2026 |
| Ireland | 10,969 van drivers; 9,460 postal workers and couriers | People at work | CSO, Census 2022 |
| Brazil | 325,000 delivering through apps | Main job, by motorcycle, car, truck, bicycle or on foot; experimental statistics | IBGE, 2025 |
| Singapore | 14,700 platform delivery workers | Residents whose regular work it is | Ministry of Manpower, 2025 |
Whole industries are larger than the driver counts. In the United States the couriers and messengers industry had 1.1 million payroll jobs in October 2026, drivers and everyone else. In Germany 343,664 people worked in postal and parcel services in June 2024, subcontractors included. France’s postal and parcel companies employed 185,000 people at the end of 2025, and the Dutch post and courier industry 60,000 in 2025. Canada’s couriers and messengers industry had 87,439 employees in 2025.
Parcels a year and who carries them
| Country | Parcels a year | Who carries them | Source, period |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 23.1 billion | Amazon 6.9 billion, USPS 6.2 billion, UPS 4.3 billion, FedEx 3.9 billion | Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index (industry figure; no official one exists), 2025 |
| Germany | 4.6 billion | DHL over 40%, Amazon 15–25%, DPD, GLS, Hermes and UPS 4–15% each | Bundesnetzagentur, 2024 |
| France | 1.9 billion delivered in France or exported, 1.74 billion of them in France | Not published | Arcep, 2025 |
| Netherlands | 615 million within the country and 447 million across its borders | PostNL 45–50% and DHL 40–45% of domestic parcels | ACM, 2025 |
| Ireland | 140.7 million, 88.2 million of them within Ireland | The seven largest parcel companies, An Post among them; shares are not published | ComReg, 2023 |
| Australia | 514.3 million delivered by Australia Post | No market total or shares published | Australia Post, year to June 2025 |
| Brazil | Not published | Correios carried 21% of parcels in 2025, down from 31% in 2023 | Correios, 2025 |
| Singapore | 29.4 million e-commerce items carried by SingPost | No market total published | SingPost, April 2025 – March 2026 |
The United Kingdom and Canada publish no official total. In the Netherlands 82.2% of parcels were delivered at home in 2025, and the number of parcel lockers nearly doubled to 9,309. Germany has close to 20,000 locker stations with more than 1.5 million compartments.
Sales representatives and field service
Delivery isn’t the only job built on a day of stops. Sales representatives visit customers, and service technicians drive from one call to the next.
| Country | Sales representatives | Field service | Source, period |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 1.5 million wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives | 409,670 HVAC mechanics and installers; 140,920 telecom installers | BLS, May 2025 |
| United Kingdom | 162,300 business sales executives | 148,600 plumbers and heating engineers; 35,400 telecom installers | ONS, July 2025 – June 2026 |
| Germany | 594,828 in sales jobs, office-based sales included | 240,179 maintenance technicians; 183,825 in plumbing, heating and air-conditioning | Bundesagentur für Arbeit, March 2026 |
| France | 364,500 sales representatives and business sales staff | 129,000 plumbers and heating engineers; 44,000 HVAC technicians | DARES, 2024 |
| Netherlands | 186,000 sales representatives and buyers | 96,000 electrical and telecom installers | CBS, 2025 |
| Canada | 59,785 wholesale sales representatives; 49,300 technical sales specialists | 29,105 HVAC mechanics; 19,945 telecom and cable technicians | Statistics Canada, 2021 Census |
| Australia | 71,800 sales representatives; 26,600 technical sales representatives | 29,700 air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanics | Jobs and Skills Australia, February 2026 |
| Ireland | 20,044 business sales executives | 11,485 plumbers and heating engineers; 3,595 telecom engineers | CSO, Census 2022 |
No country counts “technicians who drive to customers” as a job of its own, so the field service column shows the trades closest to it. Some of these people work on one site all day. Brazil and Singapore publish no figure detailed enough for these two columns.
How to read these figures
- They don’t compare. The United States counts payroll jobs, Canada and Ireland count people in a census, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands ask people in a survey, and Germany counts employees with social insurance on one day. A self-employed courier appears in the British and French figures but not in the American or German ones.
- App drivers are mostly missing. Only Brazil and Singapore count people who deliver through apps. Amazon Flex, Uber Eats and similar work sits largely outside the other figures.
- Parcel totals cover different things. Germany counts parcels up to 31.5 kg sent within the country and across its borders, France adds exports, and the Netherlands counts domestic and cross-border parcels separately.
What a day of stops looks like
Behind each of these jobs is a list of addresses to drive in some order. How much that order matters is in our route data by country: a typical route optimized in MyWay gets 27% shorter in Germany, 30% in the United States and 37% in Canada and Australia. What driving there involves, from congestion to low-emission zones and local addresses, is on the country pages: USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Brazil and Singapore.
Sources
- United States: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 and Current Employment Statistics, table B-1; Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index 2026.
- United Kingdom: Office for National Statistics, Annual Population Survey and UK Business Counts, via Nomis.
- Germany: Bundesnetzagentur, Tätigkeitsbericht Post 2024/2025; Bundesagentur für Arbeit, Beschäftigte nach Berufen, March 2026.
- France: Arcep, observatoire des marchés du courrier et du colis 2025; DARES, portraits statistiques des métiers.
- Netherlands: ACM, Post- en pakketmonitor 2025; CBS StatLine, industry and occupation tables.
- Canada: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census occupations and payroll employment by industry.
- Australia: Jobs and Skills Australia occupation profiles; Australia Post Annual Report 2025.
- Ireland: ComReg, parcel data for Ireland 2018–2023; CSO, Census 2022 occupations.
- Brazil: Correios, Relatório Integrado 2025; IBGE, Trabalho por meio de plataformas digitais 2025.
- Singapore: Ministry of Manpower, Labour Force in Singapore 2025; SingPost FY2026 results.