Need a side gig? UPS says it needs 100,000 workers for the holidays

Pay starts at $21 an hour for package handlers and $23 an hour for drivers, which is up significantly from last year due to the new Teamsters labor contract.

UPS said its online job application process now takes less than 20 minutes to get a job offer, and nearly 80% of its seasonal jobs don’t require an interview.

The company typically hires tens of thousands of seasonal workers into permanent positions each year, and Matt Lavery, UPS director of global sourcing, recruiting and onboarding, said he expects that to be similar this year.

The union contract also now calls for the company to offer seasonal driving positions to current part-time workers, before hiring new temporary workers from outside.

“We’ve always hired some internal employees, but we’re going to do a better job this year,” Lavery said.

That also means UPS will start external hiring of seasonal support drivers who use their own vehicles to deliver packages later in the season, only for the Nov. 15-Dec. 26 period.

While UPS has seen declines in package volumes this year and there is some economic uncertainty about how the holiday season will shake out, Lavery said the company can use technology and automation to scale up or down, but “the number of people we need to make deliveries is going to remain constant.”

Other companies are also hiring thousands for the holiday shipping season, including Amazon, which said it will hire 250,000 workers for the holiday season. The U.S. Postal Service said it will hire 10,000 seasonal employees.