UPS and rival FedEx Inc. (NYSE: FDX) took a lot of heat last year for shipping delays that resulted in packages not arriving in time for Christmas Day. UPS and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) offered refunds for shipping those packages that did not arrive on schedule.
UPS ended up hiring 85,000 seasonal workers last year, and that combined with the refunds lowered the company’s fourth-quarter earnings.
In its announcement Tuesday morning UPS noted, “As UPS improves its forecasting abilities this year, it is expanding its full-time and temporary capacity around the country to meet the growing e-commerce, m-commerce, and holiday shipping demands.”
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UPS has begun hiring seasonal workers for the holiday season that the company says begins in October and runs through next January. The company said it has taken the following actions since last year’s peak holiday shipping season:
- Using industry-wide delivery volume forecasts and working closely with high impact leading customers, UPS has made improvements to network utilization and schedule planning.
- Daily processing capacity will increase with the opening of new and expanded buildings, plus installation of temporary mobile sorting and delivery centers. UPS is adding thousands of new or leased delivery vehicles, trailers, aircraft and portable loading aids to flex capacity in the UPS network.
- Added operating days and shifts – full ground delivery and pick-up operations the Friday after Thanksgiving and nearly 50 new package sorting shifts throughout the company’s existing hub locations.
- Shipment tracking timing and accuracy will be improved with additional web and mobile app upgrades for enhanced information on package location and shipment status.
- Enhancements to the UPS My Choice® service will give consumers receiving home deliveries improved alerts on delivery time windows and options for re-scheduling and re-routing.
FedEx has not yet announced how many seasonal employees it will add this year.
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