Category: UPS News
A replica of NASA’s Mars “Opportunity” Rover landed at Expo 2020 Dubai – thanks to UPS, the Official Logistics Partner.
The rovers – six in total – collect rock and soil samples and look for signs of life on Mars, our nearest neighboring planet. This replica traveled from Washington, D.C. to Dubai for display at Expo 2020’s USA Pavilion.
“I’m so proud of our team and how we were able to work together to crate, insure, transport and move this shipment,” said Derek Irving, UPS director of Expo 2020 operations. “It wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration of UPSers, the Smithsonian Institute, U.S. government and the USA Pavilion team. This is another example of how we’re moving our world forward by delivering what matters.”
Black Friday is 21 days away. Before it gets here, UPS is hoping to add 60,000 people to the team nationwide.
UPS’ Brown Friday event is underway and runs through Saturday.
The hiring event supports 1,200 UPS locations and is the last push for warehouse workers and drivers for its peak season.
Through Christmas, UPS is offering new seasonal workers $20 an hour and a $200 weekly bonus. For overnight positions, the pay rate is $21 per hour.
UPS says over the past three years one-third of people hired for seasonal positions were later hired in permanent positions after the holidays.
Dave Helminski will drop off his last package for United Parcel Service Inc. on Christmas Eve 2022 and retire after four decades as a driver in Chicago. He joined UPS after four years in the Marine Corps and a yearlong stint installing carpet. He put in a few years loading trucks, then became a driver and was set for life. After Helminski drops off that last package, he’ll have pensions that provide almost the same $100,000 a year he makes now. “I came out of the lower middle class, and I’m living the dream,” Helminski says, wearing a face covering with the Marines emblem as he heads home from his shift at a large UPS facility in the northern suburb of Palatine.
Helminski’s dream industry has lately become more of a nightmare scenario at rival FedEx Corp. The massive labor shortage that’s rocked the U.S. since the pandemic and disrupted long-established employment relationships hasn’t had much impact on UPS, which pays its unionized drivers the highest wages in the industry. That’s helped it maintain a stable workforce and rising profits throughout the current disruptions. Meanwhile, lower-paying, nonunionized FedEx racked up $450 million in extra costs because of labor shortages. And while UPS easily beat earnings expectations and predicted a rising profit margin in the U.S. for the fourth quarter, FedEx signaled that its profit margin will fall further. The lack of workers is taking a toll on its reliability, too. FedEx’s recent on-time performance for express and ground packages has sunk to 85%, while UPS has met deadlines on 95% of those packages, according to data collected by ShipMatrix Inc.
Self-driving truck technology company TuSimple Holdings Inc TSP.O said on Wednesday it is mapping new freight lanes with UPS UPS.N from Arizona to Florida and has hit significant fuel savings for the package delivery company at highway speeds.
TuSimple said since 2019 it has notched up 160,000 miles hauling freight for UPS’ North America Air Freight (NAAF) division – part of its supply chain business – and has achieved 13% fuel savings at speeds between 55 miles (88.5 km) and 68 miles per hour. The routes for that UPS unit typically run between an airport and a UPS facility.
TuSimple said it shares the data from its operations with UPS, which also owns a stake in the self-driving truck technology company.
According to the American Transportation Research Institute, fuel makes up 24% of the cost per mile for heavy-duty trucks, the largest item after driver wages and benefits, which make up 42% of costs.