2012 21 business days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
2013 17 business days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
That means that there was 23% more time last year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
UPS predicts peak volume to be up 8% this year.
23% less time to do 8% more work is an increase of over 30%.
Ups is hiring the same amount of seasonal hires as it did in 2011 and 2012.
Here is the plan:
"UPS executives said that this year's late Thanksgiving holiday, Nov. 28, will be a challenge. Cramming holiday shipments into fewer days could make the network run more efficiently"
Could make the network run more efficiently??? And if not, then what?? Oh, thanks for "cramming". Will make my checks look all that much better!!
Throw in a major storm and we are all friend'd.
All the info listed above can be found here:
UPS more than doubles 3Q profit - Yahoo Finance
Your logic is completely flawed.
(1) Your math assumes there's one less week this calendar year vs. last's, which (obviously) is completely false. As the calendar is merely pushing Thanksgiving back one week, you need to be determining the excess number of packages being deferred by that week into the timeframe between Thanksgiving & Christmas. And as most retailers are planning strong pre-Thanksgiving sales push than year's past, that number will be difficult to determine; but alas, it'll fall much closer to 8% than "over" 30%.
(2) Volume has risen this year, swallowing a portion of that 8%; companywide, most centers are utilizing more drivers on the road this year than last year, already alleviating some of the pain. (Where I'm at, we have the most drivers on the road since 2005.)
(3) UPS is preparing for the increase volume push by hiring additional (seasonal) drivers. In my facility, they've asked Preloaders who are interested in driving post-Preload for 3-5 hours to sign a separate seasonal list.
(4) Nationally, UPS has stored (not scrapped) many vehicles retired earlier this year as well as reserved as many rentals necessary/as it could. In my facility, we've had rentals parked since late September in preparation for Peak season; additionally, beginning next week mechanics are expected to ensure stored vehicles are road worthy.
(5) Like many facilities, mine lacks the space to add all these additional vehicles. Thus, we've seen mock-ups of 48'/53' trailers being loaded on the PD's in which packages are dumped by shelf area into large bins that will be removed via forklift. After the first wave of package cars has cleared the building, they'll use 22.3 employees to load the shortened second wave.
(6) A similar shortened peak season last happened in 2008 (but with one additional day, however). The Friday before Christmas set a record for number of pieces being processed through our Preload. Simultaneously, we set a record for heaviest snow of the 2000s. Early in the morning it became clear that attempting to deliver these packages would be fruitless, so UPS asked the drivers to deliver as many businesses as possible (under the assumption major roads would be cleared) and then return to the building. We then ran a full sort on Sunday, and UPS provided a beautiful buffet spread for all of us. By the end of the day, we were completely caught up sans the areas that are never plowed (those consumers were asked to retrieve their packages at the building).
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Seriously, the point of an internet forum is the share knowledge. Some of us need to relent on our polarization, realize that we're sometimes wrong / there's competing opinions, and cease from posting if we can't accept that.
