Amazon to bring on 100,000 jobs in U.S. and Canada, to meet holiday rush

Soon after the parcel duopoly of UPS and FedEx each respectively announced that they are taking major steps to add seasonal staff to ramp up for the holiday rush, Seattle-based global e-commerce titan Amazon said today they are doing the same.

Amazon said it will be bringing on 100,000 new, regular full-, and part-time jobs in its operations network, in the United States in Canada, “as we expand our footprint to better serve customers in communities where they live.”  

What’s more, Amazon added that it will be opening up 100 new operations buildings in September across fulfillment centers, delivery stations, sortation centers, and other sites, with many of the new jobs based out of its newest state-of-the-art buildings.

The recent announcements by Amazon, as well as UPS and FedEx, to bring on large numbers of seasonal help does not come as a surprise, given that consumers are 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, as these companies need the increased staffer counts to handle the increased holiday crunch, otherwise commonly referred to as Peak Season.

At UPS, the company recently announced 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, which went into effect on September 13.

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.”