Category: Industry News

Leaving out treats for Santa is a holiday tradition, but what about snacks for Santa’s helpers?

Not the elves at the North Pole, but delivery drivers from places like Amazon, FedEx and UberEats who make our holidays run smoothly by working hard to deliver the things we need to make holiday magic happen.

Each holiday season, we see Pinterest-worthy pictures of overflowing snack baskets set out for delivery drivers and catch headlines showing viral doorbell videos of drivers’ reactions to treats left along their delivery routes. When I first saw these sweet ideas, I knew I wanted to leave out snacks for the drivers making rounds in my neighborhood.

Jenny Rosado, a delivery driver for United Parcel Service (UPS) in Stratford, Conn. has worked for the company for 30 years.

“You feel appreciated and loved,” Rosado tells Yahoo Life of customers’ kind gestures. “You know that they appreciate what you do for them.”

Richard Metzler ordered automation equipment as part of a plan to double the volume his small parcel delivery company could handle this holiday season. There’s just one snag: The machinery is stuck on a ship offshore amid a global supply-chain crunch.

“The timing just couldn’t be worse,” said Metzler, chief executive officer of regional courier Lone Star Overnight, who is racing to meet demand from clients such as Best Buy Co. and Nordstrom Inc. in the seven states where LSO delivers. “We’re just having to throw more bodies at it.”

Retailers have increasingly turned to regional couriers like LSO to help shuffle packages that delivery titans United Parcel Service Inc., FedEx Corp. can’t — or won’t. This holiday season is going to depend more than ever on operators taking on business the two dominant couriers are shunning in a rapidly growing delivery market. It’s unclear if the smaller players are ready as they grapple with everything from transportation logjams to worker shortages.

UPS and FedEx have opted to raise prices aggressively and turn away lower-yielding business rather than rush to build capacity. That has been a shock to shippers that rely on those two companies which, along with the U.S. Postal Service, control about 95% of last-mile deliveries of third-party parcels.

“GMA” gets a firsthand look at UPS’ massive shipping operation ahead of the holidays from the company’s largest hub in Louisville, Kentucky.

Shipping giants UPS and FedEx both say the labor shortage is causing their workforce to be smaller than they’d like in certain cities across the U.S.

UPS human resources manager Jeff Bloedorn said Denver’s suburbs of Aurora and Englewood are areas needing more workers. “We’re seeing some areas around the country with tight labor markets, and we reacted accordingly. Some of the things we’re looking to do is increase our wages, and we’ve done that in Colorado Springs as well.”

In a statement to KKTV, FedEx expressed similar issues, saying in part, “acquiring top talent is a top focus, yet the industry-wide labor shortage is putting on added pressure as there are less people to fill more available roles. FedEx has experienced a dramatic increase in demand for our residential delivery services as online shopping and e-commerce surge”

UPS has managed to keep a steady workforce through the pandemic.

The United Parcel Service is taking a win in delivery services this year. It’s raking in higher profits and maintaining a stable workforce through the pandemic with the help of its unionized workers. Meanwhile, rival Federal Express is seeing a labor shortage eat profits, racking up $450 million in extra costs.

FedEx and UPS have different approaches to last-mile package deliveries. UPS drivers are usually unionized employees while FedEx Ground drivers are generally nonunion independent contractors. The UPS model provides the truck, maintenance, and benefits packages while the FedEx model puts that on the contractor, which operates as their own business. As Bloomberg reports, FedEx’s model allowed it to expand quickly following UPS’ 1997 15-day union strike. But that same model is hurting it now.