Major recruitment drive at UPS to handle Peak season
UPS expects to hire around 100,000 seasonal employees to support the anticipated annual increase in package volume that will begin in November and continue through January 2020.
“We expect another record Peak season this year, with daily package deliveries nearly doubling compared to our average of 20 million per day,” said Jim Barber, chief operating officer. “In order to make that happen, once again we’re recruiting about 100,000 people for some of the country’s best seasonal jobs.”
The full- and part-time seasonal positions – primarily package handlers, drivers and driver-helpers – have long been an entry point for permanent employment at UPS. Many senior UPS executives, including Chairman and CEO David Abney and other members of the company’s senior leadership team, started their UPS careers as part-time employees.
Over the last three years, 35 % of the people UPS hired for seasonal package handler jobs were later hired in a permanent position when the holidays were over, and nearly a third of our current U.S. workforce started in seasonal positions.
That’s important to many. Nearly 70% want their seasonal job to turn into a full-time position, according to a recent survey of Americans who hold, have held or would consider taking a seasonal job.* And nearly all (90%) agreed that seasonal and temporary jobs are a good way to move into a permanent, full-time career.
Kevin Whitehill of Des Moines, Iowa was a college student when he started a seasonal job as a part-time package handler on his 19th birthday – Nov. 19, 1996. He worked part-time for several years and took advantage of UPS’s tuition reimbursement program to get his degree. Twenty-two years later, he’s an on-road supervisor managing tractor-trailer drivers. “I never intended UPS to be a career,” he said. “I took a job for Christmas. As I moved along, the opportunities were just too good to pass up.”
In many cities across the country, a portion of the seasonal hires are needed to staff temporary facilities that UPS builds just for the seasonal shipping rush, in addition to its permanent package hubs.
