FedEx announced on Monday, that it will hire about 20,000 new seasonal workers for the holidays, compared to just 17,000 last year. This increase will surely help some unemployed Americans, at least during the holiday season.

There are many reasons for this surge; however, many economists agree that it is due to increasing Internet sales and an increase in the economy.

Retail inventory such as apparel, personal consumer electronics and luxury goods as well as books and other items from large Internet retailers will account for a large portion of FedEx holiday volumes, the company said.

FedEx expects to break its own one day record for moving items on Dec. 12, by transporting17 million packages. This would top last year's record on Dec, 13, 2010 of 15.6 million shipment, making Dec. 12, 2011 the busiest day in company history if its predictions are accurate.

The economy right now is not as bad as some people had feared, though I wouldn't say it's going great guns, and this is also an indication that a lot of retailers kept inventories low and the consumer is not totally in the dumps, said Dahlman Rose & Co. analyst Jason Seidl according to Reuters.

FedEx forecasts more than 260 million shipments to be shipped throughout the worldwide and various shipping networks. This is a 12 percent increase for the holiday season over last year when 232 million shipments were processed, announced the company in a recent statement.

The federal government also expects to reap benefits from FedEx. FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service are partners with FedEx SmartPost deliveries. SmartPost is a system that delivers packages to post offices, which make the final delivery to customers.

As e-commerce continues to grow and demand increases with more customers shopping and conducting their business online, FedEx SmartPost is poised to handle the increase in shipments, said FedEx Chief Executive Frederick Smith. More than 290,000 FedEx team members also stand ready to deliver the holidays and enable commerce around the globe.

In its press release, FedEx agreed with a National Retail Federation estimates that holiday sales will increase 2.8 percent in November and December to $465.6 billion, has opposed to the last ten years, which only saw a 2.6 increase.

After the announcement, the companies stocks increased 3.5 percent to $82.16.

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