DHL is Adding 6,000 Seasonal Workers to North American Workforce for Holidays

UPS and FedEx both had announced big seasonal additions to their workforce for the holiday season. But now even DHL, who primarily operates international shipments between North American and the world, is adding up to 6,000 additional workers.

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This is another indication that eCommerce for this year is having a banner year which also includes a lot of cross-border trade.

Here is the Press Release from DHL

DHL, the world’s largest logistics company, is hiring additional associates and expanding its capabilities in anticipation of record holiday season volumes in 2017.

The company will hire about 6,000 additional seasonal workers across its four business units in North America to support in its contract logistics, fulfillment, freight transportation and express delivery operations in December.

DHL is also introducing upgrades to its service capabilities, including additional flights, new customer applications and piloting new warehousing technologies that leverage robotics and augmented reality to increase productivity.

DHL is forecasting volume growth of between 15 and 40% across its four logistics business units in the U.S. in the 2017 holiday season. With U.S. retailers posting record sales of approximately USD 6.6 billion on Cyber Monday, the growing role of e-commerce in the retail sector is also bringing new revenue opportunities and operational challenges into focus for both the retail and logistics industries.

DHL eCommerce CEO, Lee Spratt said: “E-commerce is fundamentally changing the way in which logistics companies operate. To help our retail customers in the U.S. meet the demands of online shoppers for greater transparency, convenience and speed, we have to balance increased capacity with improved efficiency and to offer flexible omni-channel solutions.

DHL is expanding its services across all operating divisions, from fulfillment to the last-mile, in order to support this dynamic and fast-growing segment.”

DHL Supply Chain President, Retail, Jim Gehr said: “U.S. retailers’ success for the entire year can hinge on sales and supply chain execution over the last eight weeks of the year. With fast-changing consumer habits, rapidly increasing volumes and a tight labor market, we see significant potential for new technologies, such as robotics and augmented reality, to drive productivity improvements within our customers’ supply chains.”

DHL Express SVP, Network Operations, Travis Cobb said: “Cross border e-commerce growth continues in the U.S. as consumer demand for overseas products increases driving both our imports and exports. To prepare for a busy 2017 holiday season, we have continued investment in U.S. facilities as well as expanded our intercontinental air capacity.

To ensure the delivery process is more convenient than ever, we are continuing to develop web-based tools such as On Demand Delivery which is now fully deployed in the Americas to simplify the shipping and delivery process for major retailers, smaller businesses and their customers.”

DHL Global Forwarding VP, Sales & Marketing, Paul McMillan said: “The tightening of freight capacity between Asia and the U.S. in the third quarter provided a clear indication that major retailers were importing goods in anticipation of strong holiday demand.

To ensure that we can meet our customers’ needs in a still tight market – in addition to our market-leading capacity, we have invested in dedicated, twice-weekly, round-the-world B747 freighter service that can provide reliable uplift between Asia, the Americas and Europe during peak season.”

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