The number of packages UPS delivers during the holiday season has risen steadily
2004 340 million
2009 400 million
2010 430 million
2011 480 million
2012 527 million
A steady rise in online shopping has led to a more compressed, but also busier, holiday shipping season for UPS.
The Sandy Springs logistics company said increased accessibility to retail sites on mobile devices — and the popularity of shopping online — will likely mean shoppers will delay their purchases this holiday season. The company expects more of its deliveries to be pushed into the last two weeks before Christmas, as opposed to being spread more evenly through November and December.
UPS expects to deliver 527 million packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a 9.8 percent increase over the 480 million packages it delivered for that period in 2011. The company’s holiday deliveries have risen 55 percent since 2004, when UPS estimated it would deliver 340 million packages in that period.
On its peak day — Thursday, Dec. 20 — UPS will deliver an estimated 28 million packages. On an average day, it delivers 15.8 million.
UPS will add 400 daily flight segments, and expects 6.5 million deliveries on its peak air day, more than twice the normal daily volume of 3 million packages.
In order to deal with the volume, UPS is hiring 55,000 seasonal employees to sort packages, load and unload and work as drivers’ helpers.
The figure is about the same as last year, though the company added about 60,000 seasonal workers in 2007 and 2008 and 50,000 in 2009 and 2010. New systems and greater efficiency have kept the company from needing many more workers even as package volume grows.
More information on employment can be found at upsjobs.com.
Online shopping is also the reason for FedEx’s expected 13 percent increase in shipping volume, to 280 million packages for the season. That company expects its busiest day to be Dec. 10, with an estimated 19 million packages delivered.
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