Parcel delivery companies are hiring, and they are raising the wages they’re offering to employees in order to compete for labor in what has turned into a shortage of skilled applicants. Jennifer Smith reports at The Wall Street Journal:
Parcel-delivery firms and trucking fleets added a total of 6,660 jobs last month, while warehouse operators added 800 positions, according to preliminary figures the Labor Department released Friday. But the overall pace of logistics hiring slowed compared with May’s hiring spree, as low unemployment and increased competition for workers complicated efforts to staff up.
Trucking companies, which are raising pay in what they say is a tough market for attracting drivers, kept up a strong hiring pace with 2,500 new jobs in June after adding 3,600 hires in May, ahead of the busy months in late summer and early fall when shipping volumes typically peak. Trucking employment has grown by 25,000 jobs in the past 12 months.
Courier and messenger companies that deliver e-commerce orders and other packages added 4,100 jobs in June, the 17th straight month of expansion in the sector.
Big delivery firms and the retail fulfillment operations that handle online shipments are already preparing for the coming holiday peak, with the supply of workers “the biggest question at hand,” said Michael Stull, a senior vice president with Manpower North America, a division of staffing firm ManpowerGroup.
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