UPS and FedEx lay out seasonal hiring plans for heavily anticipated Peak Season

With consumers itching to get their holiday shopping going, driven by pent-up demand and more time than usual spent at home, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it does not come as a major surprise that the parcel duopoly of UPS and FedEx have recently announced their respective plans to bring on additional seasonal staffers to handle the increased holiday crunch, otherwise commonly referred to as Peak Season.

This practice is far from new, as the companies do this on an annual basis, to be sure. But, given the unusual nature of 2020, there is a more of a focus, or onus, on e-commerce, home delivery and last-mile logistics than probably more so than ever before.  That has been reported on this web site and in the print edition of LM, in deep detail.

As an example, Jerry Hempstead, president of Hempstead Consulting, recently told LM that what usually takes a year of preparation for Peak Season has occurred over the last 100-plus days or so.

“The carriers had no preparation at all, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the country,” he said. “And when everybody was forced to go hunker down, our lifeline to the outside world was the parcel industry. And if people had not learned before, they have learned now how to buy their things on the Internet and how to be an e-commerce customer. As a result of that, what normally takes ten months of planning by the carriers before peak begins was thrust upon them overnight. The volume went up past what we normally see at the Christmas crush.”

That more or less says it all, it seems. And it makes perfect sense for there to be heightened attention on what the duopoly is doing, when it comes to bringing on additional seasonal staff, especially this year.

At UPS, the company announced this week that it expects to hire more than 100,000 seasonal employees “to support the anticipated annual increase in package volume, kicking in October 2020 and continue through January 2021.

“We’re preparing for a record peak holiday season,” said Charlene Thomas, UPS Chief Human Resources Officer, in a statement. “The COVID-19 pandemic has made our services more important than ever. We plan to hire over 100,000 people for UPS’s seasonal jobs, and anticipate a large number will move into permanent roles after the holidays. At a time when millions of Americans are looking for work, these jobs are an opportunity to start a new career with UPS.”   

The types of full- and part-time seasonal positions UPS is filling for this year’s peak includes: package handlers, drivers, driver-helpers, and personal vehicle drivers. What’s more, the company said that going back, over the last three years, roughly 35% of the seasonal staffers it has brought on, for seasonal package handler jobs, subsequently were brought on full-time post-holidays, adding that 123,000 UPS staffers—or almost one-third of its total employee base—began their UPS careers as seasonal staff.

As for FedEx and its peak season hiring plans, a company spokesman told LM that as its team of more than 500,000 team members is busy “preparing to deliver the holidays,” the company once again expects to see a large number of packages traverse its global network over the 2020 peak holiday shipping season.

“In order to provide the best possible service during this busy time of the year, FedEx is increasing hours for some existing employees and boosting our workforce with seasonal positions, as needed,” the spokesman said. “Currently, we expect to add more than 70,000 positions in the lead-up to this Peak season, with the majority of those added to the FedEx Ground network.”

FedEx, like UPS, said it is expecting what it called an unprecedented peak holiday shipping season.

In addition to the 70,000 seasonal staffers it plans to bring on, FedEx is expanding its FedEx Ground year-round Sunday residential coverage to about 95% of the U.S. population, set to go into effect on September 13.

And it added that the expansion of Sunday residential delivery coverage, coupled with its Saturday residential service available to more than 96% of the U.S. population, provides a significant weekend competitive advantage for FedEx Ground while also bolstering its ability to serve the growing needs of e-commerce customers.

“FedEx has nearly 50 years’ experience flexing our network to stay ahead of what’s next,” said Raj Subramaniam, president and chief operating officer, FedEx Corp., in a statement. “We’re excited to have expanded our e-commerce capabilities even further—including the acceleration of FedEx Ground’s seven-day a week residential delivery, investments in automated facilities and growth in our FedEx Freight Direct service and our retail convenience network. These strategic investments will help better support what is expected to be an unprecedented holiday shipping season.”

As previously mentioned, the 2020 Peak Season is shaping up to be like no other, and for good reason, no doubt. While things are uncertain on so many fronts these days, this year’s holiday shopping—and shipping season—is sure to impress, and UPS and FedEx continue to take the needed and required steps to make sure it goes off without a hitch.