UPS hiring 840 seasonal workers in New Stanton, Pittsburgh

United Parcel Service Inc. plans to hold a job fair Friday — in-person and virtual — as it looks to hire about 840 seasonal workers at its processing and shipping facilities in New Stanton and on Pittsburgh’s North Shore, the company said.

The package shipping company is looking to hire about 520 package handlers to load trucks at its warehouse, about 250 driver helpers who would take packages to a customer’s front door, as well as 46 employees who would deliver packages in their own vehicle and 25 package car and tractor-trailers drivers, said Hannah Franz, a spokeswoman for UPS. Most of the employees will be placed at the larger New Stanton facility, Franz said.

The wages for the jobs range from $16 per hour for the package handlers and driver helpers and $33.50 for tractor-trailer drivers, Franz said.

The demand for seasonal workers comes at a time when the unemployment rate for the seven-county Pittsburgh region has fallen to 8.2% in September, down 2.5 percentage points from August, as adjusted for seasonal hiring factors. There were 96,300 unemployed workers last month in the region, as the jobless rate in Allegheny County was 8.2% and Westmoreland had 7.7%, both dropping more than 2 percentage points from August.

The hiring at the two UPS Western Pennsylvania facilities is part of the company’s plan’s to hire about 100,000 seasonal workers nationwide, UPS said. Applicants at the New Stanton facility can apply in person and online, while those interested in working at the Pittsburgh warehouse can only apply online.

Workers at the huge UPS processing and shipping facility at New Stanton have been “working a lot of long hours,” said Jim Ziska, principal officer for Teamsters Local 30, which represents hourly workers at New Stanton.

“There’s a lot of overtime if you want it,” Ziska said.

While the seasonal hiring is an annual practice for UPS, Ziska said the company at New Stanton “has been extremely busy since the pandemic started.”

“The peak season started a lot earlier this year,” because of people staying at home, purchasing products online while stores were closed, Ziska said.

The busy shipping period that Ziska spoke about is reflected in UPS’s earnings for the second quarter that ended June 30, when the company’s revenue jumped 13% from a year ago to $20 billion, according to the second quarter earnings report. Net income rose to $1.7 billion in the second quarter, up almost 5% from the same period a year ago.

Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce company that opened a new fulfillment center in September in Findlay Township near Pittsburgh International Airport, said it will hire about 6,200 seasonal workers in the state. Andre Woodson, an Amazon spokeswoman, did not have a figure for the number of seasonal workers to be hired at the Findlay facility, which was touted as creating 1,000 full-time jobs when it opened.

A competitor, FedEd Corp., has a processing and shipping facility in Robinson. Jenny Robertson, a FedEx spokeswoman, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

FedEx saw its revenue rise in the quarter ending Aug. 31, up about $2 billion to $19.3 billion from a year ago. Net income also rose to $1.25 billion, up from $745 million from last year.