UPS to hire nearly 3,000 seasonal workers on Long Island

UPS said yesterday it will hire about 2,800 people on Long Island for the holiday season, part of a plan to hire 90,000 to 95,000 employees nationally to help handle shipping and deliveries during the holiday season.

UPS said seasonal jobs can become permanent jobs in some cases. As a federal contractor, UPS will pay a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, and some driving jobs will pay about $30 an hour.

On Long Island, jobs will pay from $10.10 to $18.75 an hour, UPS said.

The company said applications must be submitted online at Upsjobs.com.

The package-delivery company has struggled to handle a crush of online shipping over the past two years, particularly during the last, frenzied days of the shopping season, when retailers entice people into buying last-minute gifts by offering free shipping. Millions of packages arrived late in 2013 and 2014.

"We know those things are coming now, where once upon a time we may not have expected them," said executive Tammy Caldwell.

UPS said it is better prepared this year because it is reaching out to more customers, including smaller retailers, to get estimates of how many orders they expect to receive. The company says it is getting more updates on those figures.

The Atlanta-based company will hire full-time and part-time workers at locations around the United States. The seasonal jobs will last from November to January.

UPS said it expects U.S. online sales to almost double by 2020. In response it is hiring more staff, buying new vehicles and trailers, using more aircraft, updating its website and investing $1 billion in facility and equipment improvements. It has automated more of its operations so it can process more orders using fewer people.

United Parcel Service Inc. hired between 90,000 and 95,000 people for the 2014 holiday season. That was far more than it had hired the year before, when it was caught off-guard by an increase in last-minute online shopping.

With Carrie Mason-Draffen