UPS adds Saturday delivery, to hire 6,000 workers

Customers in select cities can expect to receive their packages from online purchases on Saturdays, as the United Parcel Service Inc. adds delivery services during part of the weekend too.

For the first time ever, Saturday ground delivery and pick-up services will be available for customers, in a push increase customer satisfaction. UPS also announced it will hire an additional 6,000 new workers once the additional day of delivery is fully implemented.

Those jobs will be added by the end of 2018, according to a company statement.

“The addition of another ground operations day more efficiently utilizes our existing delivery network and offers customers an even faster ground delivery solution,” said Teresa Finley, UPS’s chief marketing officer.

The delivery operation will expand in 15 additional major metro areas in April, and then will expand to nearly 4,700 other cities and towns by the holiday shipping season. In 2018, more than 5,800 cities and towns will have Saturday delivery services.

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UPS said online retailers will benefit from fewer lost sales from “abandoned online shopping carts, enhanced ship-from-store options and fewer items being out of stock.”

UPS began testing in New York, Chicago and New York and is now expanding to Atlanta, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Only one area in Ohio — Cleveland, Elyria and Mentor — will be added as an initial market.

Other cities that will be served include Pittsburgh, Penn.; Tampa, Fla.; and Knoxville, Tenn.

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