Believe it or not, Christmas season will be here before you know it and with it come all kinds of seasonal contracting opportunities for truckers. There are also thousands of seasonal jobs that arrive with the rush. In recent years, the Washington Post reported that E-commerce giant, Amazon will hire an extra 100,000 people to get them through the holidays. UPS plans on adding 95,000 and Fed-Ex will add 55,000. I fully expect this year to be the same or bigger.
There are many “power only” options out there for independent owner-operators. Right now, J.B. Hunt is recruiting owner-operators for their “Black Friday” operation with Walmart. I’ve participated in this in years past. This operation peaks in early November as loaded trailers are transported from distribution centers nationwide to temporary drop yards. From there, they will be transported to the Walmart stores starting about two weeks before Thanksgiving. Drivers drop the trailers at the stores and simply deadhead back. Around the first of December, drivers bobtail to the stores and hook to empty trailers and return them to the rental yard that they originated from. This is nearly two months of seasonal work that some owner-operators may find helpful.
UPS uses owner-operators to meet the increased demand during the holidays. Companies like Landstar, Mercer and others look for volunteers within their ranks first, then reach out to outside carriers that they broker with to fill the demand. Syfan Logistics, who can be found here, is one of the bigger logistic companies that supports UPS every Christmas. Fed-Ex Ground also uses owner-operators during the Christmas holidays, but I’m not sure about the process. I would call them to find out if you’re interested.
The above information can be very lucrative if you're in position to supply trucks to the mega package carriers. They will be working extra hard to make sure everyone gets their Christmas presents and this will take A LOT of extra help!