UPS photo
Iowans who are looking for seasonal work and a little exercise might consider going brown for the season of red and green.
UPS plans to hire about 1,000 workers in Iowa for the holidays, including some 150 positions in Des Moines and another 300 in Omaha-Council Bluffs.
Steve Jones, talent acquisition director for UPS, says they’re hiring for three types of positions, both full- and part-time.
“We have package handlers or warehouse workers that handle the packages within our warehouses,” Jones says. “We have driver helpers, so if you’ve ever wanted to ride on one of our brown trucks, you can go help our drivers deliver packages into neighborhoods and businesses. And we have personal vehicle drivers. That’s where you drive your own car in a UPS brown uniform and deliver packages to our customers.”
The pay starts at $14.50 an hour and if you like the job, there’s the opportunity to stay on once the holiday season is over.
“Thirty-seven percent of our seasonal workers last year came back as permanent employees,” Jones says. “Right now, about 123,000 of our current UPSers started as seasonal employees. That’s nearly one-third of our U.S. workforce.”
The delivery giant’s peak season is already beginning and will run through mid-January, as returns are a big part of the business after Christmas.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still underway, Jones stresses that the company follows all local, state and federal guidelines.
“We provide PPE to all of our employees,” Jones says. “We have upped the cleaning of all of our facilities and now we also have contactless delivery. We don’t have our customers sign our diad anymore, the computer our drivers carry, and the package is set down instead of handed to them.”
Positions are available in many communities across Iowa at UPSjobs.com.