Published 16 October 2026 · SunTzu Recruit
Summary: J&T Express handled 9.58 billion parcels in Q3 2026, averaging 104.2 million a day. Its fastest growth came from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt, where volume rose 159.5% year on year. Those markets have no deep bench of managers who can run a Chinese-style parcel network locally. The scarce roles are regional network operators, last-mile and franchise leads, and cross-border compliance owners.
Key Takeaways
- J&T’s “Other Markets” (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt) handled 270.8 million parcels in Q3 2026, up 159.5% year on year.
- In one quarter, those markets moved about two-thirds of their full-year 2025 volume.
- Neither expatriate managers nor local logistics veterans fit the role on their own. The scarce profile has run parcels in a similar market and can also work to a Chinese network’s data and density targets.
- Country manager briefs are usually three jobs in one: regional network operator, last-mile and franchise lead, and cross-border compliance owner.
- Qualified regional operators number in the dozens. Companies that staff this layer first will set the service levels that platforms write into contracts.
What Did J&T Express Report for Q3 2026?
J&T Express published its third-quarter operating numbers on 14 October 2026.
| Indicator (Q3 2026) | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total parcels handled | 9.58 billion (+24.8% YoY) |
| Average daily parcels | 104.2 million (second consecutive quarter above 100 million) |
| Outlets worldwide (30 September) | 20,300 (about 1,000 more than three months earlier) |
| China parcel volume growth | +15.3% YoY |
| Other Markets parcel volume | 270.8 million (+159.5% YoY) |
| Other Markets daily average | 2.9 million parcels |
| Other Markets full-year 2025 volume (for comparison) | 404 million |
Southeast Asia remains J&T’s profit engine and China still delivers the volume. The strain is in the Other Markets. They entered in 2022, turned profitable in 2025 on a 43.6% rise in parcel volume, and are now growing at 159.5%.
A quarter that grows 159% is a hiring story as much as a logistics story, and the hiring has not kept up.
Why Is a Parcel Network Hard to Build in New Markets?
The strain is in Mexico City, Riyadh, São Paulo and Cairo, where the operating playbook has to be rebuilt locally. A parcel network depends on four things, all of them people-dependent:
| Component | What it requires locally |
|---|---|
| Franchise recruitment pipeline | Finding and keeping station owners |
| Address system | Delivery in neighbourhoods without formal street names |
| Cash-on-delivery flow | A settlement process a courier can complete at the end of a shift |
| Labour model | A model that survives local staff turnover |
None of these transfers cleanly from Shenzhen. Growth this fast pulls a management layer forward years before it would normally exist: the country operator, the last-mile lead, the clearance and compliance owner. In most of these markets, those people are not yet in place.
Why Can’t Companies Fill These Roles with Expatriates or Local Hires?
Sending managers from the existing network works for the first warehouse and fails at scale:
- Expatriate packages cost multiples of local senior salaries.
- Visa quotas in the Gulf and Mexico are tight.
- A manager who has never negotiated with a local franchisee rarely survives a bad peak season.
- Half the job is local: customs practice, tax treatment of cross-border e-commerce parcels, union or agency labour norms, and the informal credit arrangements that keep couriers on the road.
Hiring a local logistics veteran fails from the opposite direction. Plenty of candidates can run a domestic courier business. Far fewer can run one inside a Chinese network that works on density assumptions, weekly volume targets and a data rhythm set in Shanghai.
The scarce profile sits between the two: someone who has run parcels in a market like Mexico or Indonesia and can read a network dashboard the way the parent company does.
Who Else Is Competing for the Same Logistics Talent?
The shortage is not specific to J&T. The European Labour Authority lists logistics and supply chain functions among the most constrained talent categories in Germany, the Nordics and the Netherlands.
Chinese operators expanding into Latin America and the Middle East compete for the same small group of people, often against global integrators that pay in hard currency and offer a Western career path.
Which Roles Do Chinese Parcel Networks Need Overseas?
SunTzu Recruit places cross-border and supply chain leadership for Chinese and international clients. These briefs usually arrive as country manager roles. In practice they are three different jobs under one title.
1. Regional Network Operator
- Owns P&L for two or three markets
- Negotiates volume forecasts with headquarters
- Decides where the next hundred outlets go
Strong candidates are usually already running something. They have handled a peak season that went wrong, can explain per-parcel unit economics without a spreadsheet, and have hired a country team before.
2. Last-Mile and Franchise Lead
- Recruits, trains and retains couriers and station owners
- Owns the service metrics that decide whether e-commerce platforms renew their contracts
3. Cross-Border Compliance Owner
- Handles classification, duty and clearance for parcels crossing at least one border
- Keeps up with fast-changing rules on low-value e-commerce shipments
The rules in J&T’s own growth markets show how quickly this changes:
| Market | Change for low-value e-commerce parcels |
|---|---|
| Brazil | Since August 2024, purchases up to US$50 under the Remessa Conforme programme carry a 20% federal import tax, ending the previous de facto exemption |
| Mexico | From 15 August 2025, the tax on courier shipments under US$2,500 from countries without a trade agreement with Mexico, including China, rose from 19% to 33.5% |
Each change alters landed cost, platform pricing and clearance workflow at the same time. This is the rarest of the three roles and the hardest to train internally, because the knowledge is specific to each jurisdiction.
Why the pool is so small: J&T entered these five markets in 2022. Anyone with direct experience of building a Chinese parcel network in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Mexico, Brazil or Egypt has at most four years of it, and most of that experience sits inside a handful of operators. At J&T’s current pace of roughly 1,000 new outlets a quarter, demand for that experience is growing faster than the experience itself can accumulate. Raising the offer moves a candidate from one operator to another. It does not add a single person to the pool.
Where the Network Succeeds or Fails
The hiring that matters most sits one level below the top, where a network is either run properly or slowly decays:
- The operations director who fixes an underperforming station
- The workforce planner who models a Ramadan or Buen Fin peak
- The clearance manager who keeps a stopped container from becoming a customer-service failure
Is the Parcel Network Talent Shortage Temporary?
The case that it is: Sorting gets automated, route optimisation improves, and the operating model matures until a competent local manager can run a market without unusual experience. This happened in Southeast Asia: the first wave of Chinese operators arrived with thin expatriate teams, and a decade later the local talent pool is deep.
Why it does not hold in the current window:
- J&T added about 1,000 outlets in three months.
- Chinese e-commerce and logistics capital is moving into the Gulf, Mexico and Brazil at the same time.
- Global platforms are building their own delivery capacity in the same markets.
Every one of these programmes needs the same regional operators, and the supply of people who have actually done the job is measured in dozens, not thousands.
What Should Logistics Operators Do Now?
Operators will train internally, hire from each other, and eventually the local talent pool will catch up. The advantage goes to whoever staffs the regional layer before growth flattens, because the first companies to secure operators set the service levels that platforms then write into contracts.
For candidates, the market that produced a 159.5% quarter is short of people who have run one before, and that scarcity is reflected in pay.
A quarterly result takes one press release. The team that delivers the next quarter takes a year to build.
FAQ
How many parcels does J&T Express handle per day?
In Q3 2026, J&T Express handled 9.58 billion parcels, an average of 104.2 million per day. It was the second consecutive quarter above 100 million parcels a day.
Which J&T markets are growing fastest?
J&T’s Other Markets (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt) handled 270.8 million parcels in Q3 2026, up 159.5% year on year. Those markets entered in 2022 and became profitable in 2025.
What roles do Chinese parcel networks need in the Middle East and Latin America?
Regional network operators with multi-market P&L responsibility, last-mile and franchise leads who manage couriers and station owners, and cross-border compliance owners who handle classification, duty and clearance.
Why are overseas parcel network managers hard to hire?
Expatriates are expensive and limited by visa quotas, while most local logistics veterans have not worked inside a Chinese network’s data and volume model. Chinese parcel networks have only operated in markets such as Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Brazil since around 2022, so the pool of people who combine both is very small.
What compliance changes affect cross-border parcels in Brazil and Mexico?
Brazil has applied a 20% federal import tax to purchases up to US$50 under the Remessa Conforme programme since August 2024. Mexico raised the tax on courier shipments under US$2,500 from non-trade-agreement countries, including China, from 19% to 33.5% from 15 August 2025.
Will the logistics operator shortage ease?
Over time, yes, as automation improves and local talent develops, as happened in Southeast Asia. In the current window, simultaneous expansion by Chinese operators and global platforms into the same markets keeps demand well ahead of supply.
SunTzu Recruit is a China-based executive search firm placing senior talent for supply chain, logistics, technology and cross-border businesses globally. For mandate inquiries on international parcel networks, overseas operations and cross-border compliance roles, contact SunTzu Recruit directly.
Comments are closed