NEW YORK — Besides packages, UPS is promising to deliver something else fast: job offers.
The Atlanta-based company said Thursday that it plans to hire more than 100,000 people for the busy holiday shipping season, many of whom will get job offers within 30 minutes of applying.
UPS needs to snap up workers as fast as it can because of the tight job market.
Competition for hourly workers is fierce, and many companies are offering all kinds of incentives, including higher pay, sign-on bonuses and even lowering their requirements, such as hiring people without a high school degree. Take too long to hire, and an applicant can go elsewhere.
UPS said it pays between $15 per hour and $22 per hour, depending where in the country the job is.
Matt Lavery, UPS’s global director of sourcing and recruiting, told the Associated Press they "wanted to take away as many barriers as we could."
The job offers within 30 minutes of applying covers the company's most common jobs for seasonal employees: package handlers and driver helpers, who take a package from a truck and deliver it to homes, but don't drive the UPS vehicle.
UPS told AP it trimmed its hiring decisions by having applicants submit all their documents online and skipping interviews. Lavery said the hiring process once someone applied previously would take up to two weeks because of scheduling interviews.
The U.S. Labor Department said Thursday that showed that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 310,000, a pandemic low.