UPS Projects Holiday Hiring in Line With Last Year
September 14 2016 - 11:40AM
Dow Jones News
United Parcel Service Inc. on Wednesday said it expects to hire
about 95,000 extra employees for the holidays, the same number as
the past two years, in the latest signal that seasonal hiring will
remain flat.
Retail hiring this holiday season is forecast to remain
unchanged from a year ago, when employment in the sector increased
by 738,800 during the final three months of the year, according to
Challenger Gray & Christmas. Those job gains were 1.4% lower
than the previous year.
"The big change we are seeing, however, is that while seasonal
retail jobs remain flat or shrink, there has been a marked increase
in seasonal job gains in other sectors. The sector with the biggest
increase in holiday hiring in recent years has been transportation
and warehousing, as more and more holiday shopping is done online,"
said John Challenger, the firm's chief executive.
Earlier this week, Target Corp. said it was looking to hire
70,000 seasonal employees across its stores for the period. But it
also plans to add 7,500 workers at its distribution and fulfillment
centers—up slightly from last year—which ship online orders and
send products to stores.
The competition for holiday workers is heating up as retailers
like Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are expected to step
up recruiting.
For the past few years big retailers have been flinging up
warehouses and distribution centers across the country to get their
online orders to customers faster.
UPS's proprietary-routing software, Orion, has helped it to
shave minutes and miles off drivers' routes. The company has said
it plans to expand the roll out of the technology in time for the
holiday season.
Challenger Gray & Christmas pointed to Bureau of Labor
Statistics data, which show that transportation and warehousing
employment increased by a non-seasonally-adjusted 200,500 workers
in November and December.
The firm expects UPS and FedEx Corp. will add a combined 150,000
workers this holiday season—flat from what the shipping companies
announced last year.
"We continue to move from brick-and-mortar toward
click-and-order. But even in the internet era of holiday shopping
that means that brick-and-mortar fulfillment facilities need
seasonal workers," said Mr. Challenger.
Write to Anne Steele at Anne.Steele@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 14, 2016 11:25 ET (15:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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