BIG news at SDF to be announced Wed: "UPS hiring 4,900 in $1 billion expansion"

Scuba_Steve

Well-Known Member
This looks like we are going to announce nearly a doubling of the SDF Worldport on Wed. The orginal only was a little over $1B itself.

Here is the article from the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper website today.

The text is below... interesting they mention new IT Technial positions in this article since we have had the recent destruction of TSG and how the corrupt and lazy Corporate ISNJ mafia is in the past few months started the process of decimating the much superior Louisville Airline IT group who runs circles around them in technical capabilites and take all of their jobs away and move support of all Airline IT to NJ. Facinating. Good times.



UPS is planning a major expansion of its Worldport air cargo hub at Louisville International Airport that will add thousands of new jobs, a spokesman for Gov. Ernie Fletcher confirmed late Tuesday.

According to sources at UPS, the $1 billion expansion will add a reported 1,200 full-time and 3,700 part-time jobs to the facility.

“They’re good-paying jobs,” said Fletcher spokesman Brett Hall. “It’s a coup.”

The company is also planning a significant physical expansion at Worldport, and will do so without acquiring additional land, the sources said.

Work on the project is scheduled to begin in late July and will continue through 2010. Hiring will also be spread over that period.

Hall said Tuesday that Fletcher approved an economic-development package associated with the project. He said he was unfamiliar with the details.

The expansion is the result of UPS’ increase in international, domestic and express air cargo traffic as it takes advantage of an expanding global economy.

Jobs will range from operations managers and computer technicians to package sorters. The vast majority of the jobs will be locally generated, though a few employees may be transferred in from other UPS facilities.

An official announcement is scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at UPS’ Worldport facility. Several top officials are planning to attend, reportedly including Gov. Ernie Fletcher and Louisville Metro Mayor Jerry Abramson.

Abramson would not reveal or confirm any details of a UPS expansion, but said he will be at a press conference Wednesday with UPS and state officials.

“Tomorrow will be a great day for Louisville, Kentucky,” he said late Tuesday.

Reflecting back on the decision in the 1980s to expand Louisville International Airport — to allow for UPS expansion as well as better passenger service — Abramson said UPS operations have “grown beyond any of our hopes.”

Officials at Greater Louisville Inc., the metro chamber of commerce, declined comment.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority is scheduled to meet in Frankfort half an hour before the scheduled announcement to consider incentives for the project.

UPS is the largest private employer in the metro region, providing 18,000 jobs.

The company already is in the middle of an $82.5 million expansion that involves a 700,000-square-foot heavy-freight hub due to open next month. The company, as of last week, said it still needed to hire for 700 part-time positions related to that expansion.

The latest expansion is expected to begin late this year, sources at UPS said.

Paul Coomes, an economist at the University of Louisville, said the expansion to be announced Wednesday would be welcome.

“There has not been much voltage in the local economy on the job front in Louisville in five years,” Coomes said. “This would probably qualify as the biggest job announcement in Louisville since the late ‘90s.”

Coomes said Louisville’s job numbers peaked in 2000.
News of the pending announcement broke after the close of trading and UPS shares closed at $80.76, down 56 cents.

The Worldport package sorting complex is 4 million square feet — the equivalent of more than 80 football fields — and automates the express package sorting process with advanced, customized technology.

The hub’s sorting capacity is 304,000 packages per hour — or more than 84 packages every second.

UPS formally opened Worldport in 2002. Planning began in 1995 and construction began in 1999.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
 
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