Postal Service, UPS prepare for another pandemic crunch this holiday

The last holiday season was far from the most wonderful time of the year for the U.S. Sick and Quarantined workers, a flood of package from shoppers loathe to set foot in stores and a last minute dump of packages from overwhelmed private shippers. Postal workers who recall letters piled up in distribution hubs are better prepared this time as they gear up for another pandemic crunch. There is new uncertainty surrounding gift delivery due to low product inventories and port and supply chain disruptions.

Workers are seeing a surge in holiday packages that began several weeks ago. A lot of the workers are saying, Oh no. Scott Adams, the local president of the American Postal Workers Union in Portland, said he was here again. The US Postal Service and private shippers UPS and FedEx are bolstering their hiring - bringing in about 230,000 temporary workers and taking other steps to make sure they don't get overwhelmed by packages.

Nearly 3.4 billion parcels are expected to be crisscross the country this holiday season, an estimated increase of about 400 million compared to last year, said Satish Jindel, from Pennsylvania-based ShipMatrix, which analyzes shipping package data.

The U.S. is included when cards and letters are included. The Postal Service said it's going to deliver more than 12 billion items.

The pandemic is still here. The supply chain is a challenge that's going to affect how people shop and how products move, according to Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 postal workers.

Despite the precarious situation, the Postal Service, UPS and FedEx are in better shape to handle peak volume, and several trends could work in their favor, Jindel said.

More people are shopping in stores compared to last year, and people have been placing online orders earlier because they're aware of supply chain problems, Jindel said. He said that there are fewer office supply shipments made to homes with workers returning to offices.

He said that the shippers are adapting to the rough-and- tumble experience of last year. U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was facing withering criticism last year but reported on-time improvements and reduced operating losses this month, says the service is ready for the crunch.

He said that we are ready, so send us your packages and mail.

A year ago, more than a third of Postal Service first-class mail was late by the time Christmas arrived.

Tractor-trailers stuffed with mail were left idling outside some postal-sorting facilities. Packages and letters were piled up in distribution hubs. In many instances, delays grew by days and then weeks.

Two things were painfully obvious. More workers and more space were needed, and are being addressed. By peak season, the Postal Service is moving more than 30,000 non-career employees to the ranks of career employees, hiring 40,000 seasonal employees, and leasing extra space at more than 100 locations to make sure there's room for parcels.

Over the last 10 years, the Postal Service installed more than 100 new package sorting machines, part of $40 billion of planned investment. More than 50 package systems capable of sorting large packages are expected to be deployed by December.

The expansion capacity is increased by an additional 4.5 million packages per day, officials said.

UPS has more than 100,000 seasonal employees in the country and continues to add aircraft and automation. Nearly 90% of its packages will be flown through automated facilities by the end of the year.

The FedEx is in the process of boosting its workforce by 90,000 across its operating companies. The company said most of the new workers are expected to remain after the holidays.

Despite all those extra workers, the shippers agree that this is not the year for shoppers to procrastinate. Jim Mayer, a spokesman for UPS, said you should complete your holiday shopping as soon as possible.