BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - This holiday season has led to a demand in delivery drivers.
Transportation and logistics companies were already pushed due to the increase in online retail purchases this year. The holiday season has only exacerbated the issue.
A search on job boards for delivery drivers yield several local companies who have partnered locally with Amazon to bring packages to the "last mile" of homes from the distribution center in Tonawanda.
"It's a holiday shopping season that we've never seen in the history of doing it," Drew Wilkerson, President of North American Transportation at XPO Logistics, said. "We're balancing a pandemic and balancing a peak season that is the mother of all peaks. You've seen massive e-commerce growth since the onset of COVID. What you see now is the continued growth of e-commerce as we get into that."
XPO Logistics has several locations throughout the country, including in Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, and Olean.
According to census bureau data, total retail sales for the third quarter was $1.4 trillion, an increase of 12% from the second quarter. Online retail sales increased 36.7% from the third quarter of 2019 while total retail sales increased 7% in the same period. Online retail accounted for 14.3% of all sales.
"Driver shortage has been a challenge over the years in transportation," Wilkerson said. "Capacity is as tight as what it has been in my 15 years of transportation."
The partnership with Amazon has also benefited business owners like Shawn Ikpa, the President at Castletop Logistics in Tonawanda.
"I've been in business with Amazon since July of 2020 and we've slowly grown our company over time to just over 100 employees and close to 60 vans," Ikpa said. "It's been a great partnership. We deliver all throughout Western New York. Our drivers leave the station at approximately 11 a.m. and they're typically out for a ten hour route and don't come back throughout the day."
Ikpa said this year has resulted in an "unprecedented" amount of volume.
"We've seen an increase in drivers," Ikpa said. "The need for drivers this year is higher than in previous years due to customer demand. Every company in the building is hiring significantly every week. We have a need for drivers and what we need really is someone who is reliable, who's operating with safety in mind, and is customer obsessed in terms of doing the right thing for the customer."
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