Could Your Holiday Packages Be Delayed This Year?

As online shopping for the holidays continues to increase, the need for package delivery also continues to grow. But this year some consumers may experience a delay in their holiday deliveries as many companies are reportedly faced with a shortage of workers.

Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of online job site Snagajob told USA Today that one package delivery company is still in need of about 10,000 drivers. While Stevenson declined to release the name of the shipping company, it painted the picture of how dire the situation may be.

According to the Labor Department and outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, jobs in transportation and warehousing fell 17% to 43,700 (via USA Today). This doesn’t mean that warehouses and shipping companies don’t need employees, but rather that they can’t find enough workers to staff their companies during the busiest time of the year, Andrew Challenger, vice president at Challenger Firm told the news outlet.

To help with the labor shortages, many companies reported raised the average seasonal workers’ pay up 30% from last year at the same time, Stevenson said. This was in addition to reportedly offering a number of incentives to attract new employees such as bonuses and full-time work after the holidays.

UPS (UPS) announced that it was hiring 100,000 workers in September, and FedEx (FDX) also said it was hiring 55,000 more, Reuters reported. Amazon (AMZN) announced that it was hiring 30,000 employees back in September, but it may not be enough for any of the companies to ensure on-time package deliveries this year.

Shares of UPS stock were down 0.09% as of 10:35 EST on Monday while shares of FedEx stock were up 0.48% at the same time. Shares of Amazon stock were down 1.81% also at the same time.