1. Peak Season Brings Hiring Goals for Carriers
With Peak Season around the corner, carriers are ramping up hiring for temporary workers to compensate for an increase in shipment capacity. Here’s how many workers some are looking to hire:
- Amazon
- Hiring for 250,000 full-time, part-time, and seasonal jobs for fulfillment centers and transportation services. This is 100,000 more than last year.
- Investing $1.3 billion in wage increases to help recruitment efforts
- UPS
- Aiming to hire over 100,000 seasonal employees, the same target they had in 2022.
- FedEx
- Hasn’t disclosed hiring targets, but claims existing employees are “ready to deliver for this year’s peak season.”
- Package handler and delivery driver job openings exist in numerous locations.
- USPS
- Hiring 10,000 seasonal employees, a decline from the 28,000 last year.
- Has cited that improvements in workforce training and retention are reasons they don’t need to charge peak season fees this year.
- DHL eCommerce
- Hiring around 2,600 seasonal workers, a slight increase from 2,000 last year.
Article from Max Garland, Supply Chain Dive
2. Logistics Warehouse Construction Hits Near 10-year Low
New constructions on logistics warehouses and fulfillment centers have hit their lowest point in nearly 10 years, according to commercial real estate research firm CoStar. Higher interest rates and weaker demand have combined for the decline.
Given the construction time needed for such large facilities, the effects of this slowdown aren’t expected to be felt until late 2024 or early 2025. If demand for warehousing rebounds by then, companies can expect to pay higher prices for space.
Article from Mark Solomon, FreightWaves
3. Takeaways From FTC’s Antitrust Suit Against Amazon
In late September, the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon for alleged monopolistic practices, mostly revolving around fulfillment services. Here are some key focuses of the FTC’s allegations.
- Sharp fulfillment fee increases have hurt sellers, causing price increases on both Amazon and other platforms.
- Prime eligibility corners Amazon sellers into using FBA. Without using FBA to fulfill products, non-Prime listings receive far less visibility on Amazon’s marketplace.
- This conduct has hurt the growth and competitiveness of other fulfillment providers.
- Seller Fulfilled Prime hasn’t fixed these issues in the eyes of the FTC.
