What you need to know about Amazon’s corporate layoffs
Amazon will lay off 14,000 employees as it invests in AI and robotic automation.
United Parcel Service has cut 48,000 jobs this year, the company announced on Oct. 28, with the majority of those cuts coming from “operational staff.”
The delivery giant said in its 8-K filing that it has cut about 34,000 operational jobs, including drivers, and an additional 14,000 from management positions under a consolidation and cost-cutting plan.
Brian Dykes, UPS’s chief financial officer, said on the company’s earnings call that the reductions included voluntary buyouts of full-time drivers, 90% of whom left the company as of Aug. 31. UPS also suspended daily operations at 93 leased and owned buildings for the first nine months of 2025, and said it was considering closing additional buildings as part of a plan it called “network reconfiguration and efficiency rethinking.”
UPS CEO Carol Tomé said in a news release that the turnaround effort was “the most significant strategic shift in our company’s history.”
“As the holiday shipping season approaches, we are positioned to achieve our highest efficiency peak in our history while providing our customers with industry-leading service for the eighth year in a row,” Tomé added.
UPS announced in its first-quarter earnings call in April that it would lay off approximately 20,000 employees and close approximately 73 facilities in 2025 due to “new or increased tariffs” and “changes in general economic conditions in the United States or internationally.”
UPS Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes said in a statement to USA TODAY at the time that the announced cuts were in line with the company’s plan to cut deliveries to Amazon by more than half.
In 2024, UPS will employ approximately 490,000 people worldwide, including 330,000 jobs represented by Teamsters in the United States.
What did the new earnings report show?
UPS reported third-quarter revenue of $21.4 billion and net income of $1.31 billion. This represents a profit of $1.55 per share, the report said.
The company also reported that it handled 19.4 million packages during the quarter, a 9.8% decrease from the same period last year.
The company announced it had saved $2.2 billion as of September 30 compared to last year. The company expects total cost savings to reach $3.5 billion by 2025. The delivery service said its plan to “reconfigure and reimagine efficiency” is scheduled to end in 2027.
Contributor: Jonathan Limehouse, america today
