With the holiday season approaching, the United States Postal Service is looking to hire new employees across the country. In North Texas alone, they are looking to find 1,500 new workers. According to Fox News, USPS shipping last year rose 25% during the holidays.
One worker, Albert Ruiz, told Fox that they were more prepared for this year’s busy season.
“We are better prepared this year, not just hiring alone. We’re investing in some of our package processing equipment as well,” Ruiz said. “We have about 112 new machines that are coming in throughout the country that are going to help us to process packages a lot faster.”
To fill the demand for workers, they will be hosting job fairs throughout Dallas. Nationwide, they are looking to fill 40,000 positions.
SMU economics professor Mike Davis spoke to Fox News about possible issues affecting hiring and delivery dates.
Davis said, “I can’t imagine that we’re not going to have some really serious seasonal employment issues this year. I mean, we already know we’re having huge labor shortages.”
One issue Davis pointed out was a lack of employees in the workforce.
“Some will say four or five million people who have just somehow dropped out of the workforce, and we’re not seeing them show up,” he said. “At the same time, this is likely to be a big-spending season for people.”
USPS recently changed their standards for delivery times, adding that there could be delays of a few days.
David Sacco from the University of New Haven told Fox that holiday shoppers may have to get their shopping done earlier than usual.
Sacco said, “We might see people change their gift-giving patterns, change the kind of gifts they get. And even when it comes to things that have to get delivered, maybe think about just shopping locally and getting what’s available as opposed to ordering things that might not show up on time.”
USPS has also added deadlines for packages to get delivered by Christmas, with some as early as December 15.
Sacco added that this shipping season could be “the worst one we’ve ever seen.”
Amazon and other shipping companies are also hoping to fill seasonal positions. Amazon is hiring 150,000 new employees nationwide. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, they plan to employ 6,500 workers.
However, Sacco said they would be facing similar issues as USPS.
“Somewhere between 60 and 80,000 truck drivers, we’re light right now, which is not just the ships being unloaded that’s causing the issues. It’s the unavailability of truck drivers to deliver those containers,” he said.
USPS began hosting job fairs last week, on Thursday, October 21, and Friday, October 22. Over the next two weeks, they will be hosting four more.
According to Fox News, the amount of Americans filing for unemployment dropped last week to a new low. The labor department stated that it was the third time in a row there was a drop.
