UPS AXES 48,000 Jobs in Brutal Bloodbath (Shares Soar 8%)

“Who do you think you are? I AM!” - UPS to Amazon after winning the “Who-Can-Annihlate-The-Most-Managment-Jobs-In-A-Single-Day” Award… 

Amazon thought it had the week’s headline when it axed 14,000 employees. Then UPS walked in with a cigar, and a friggin’ chainsaw as 48,000 pour souls are now #Opentowork. Of those, 14,000 were management, 34,000 were ops… and yes, this is after the 20,000 cuts back in April. Bigly. 

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, CEO Carol Tomé called it “finding opportunities to bring costs down” and naturally, shares jumped 8% because Wall Street loves a good fat trimming every now and then. However, the pivot here is that UPS is done with volume… Instead, they are chasing margins. Tomé, the first outsider to run the company, came over from Home Depot during COVID and rewired the whole thing around efficiency. Fewer packages, fatter profit. That’s the new religion.

(Source: Wall Street Journal) 

And as of now, it’s working… that is, if you’re definition of “working” includes firing everyone. UPS has already shut down 93 buildings this year, pulled $2.2 billion in cost savings, and wants $3.5 billion by 2025. They’re hiring fewer seasonal workers for the holidays, leasing fewer planes, and swapping bodies for automation. Additionally, UPS’ relationship with Amazon has been  circling the drain for months. UPS said Amazon deliveries dropped 21% in Q3 alone, and the two companies already agreed to cut Amazon volume by 50% by 2026. Translation: UPS is breaking up with its largest customer before it gets ghosted.

Meaning, this is the part where Tomé swears the company is “positioned to run the most efficient peak in our history.” And yet, the irony is that  UPS posted better-than-expected earnings this quarter (read: $1.74 per share versus the $1.31 analysts wanted) and the market treated it like a second coming. Efficiency theater plays well when everyone’s still pretending “AI and automation” mean something other than “we replaced Carl with an algorithm.” 

(Source: Imgflip) 

But beneath the rally, the signal’s clear: the logistics world is trimming fat before the economy does it for them. Volumes are down, labor’s expensive, and demand’s cooling. The easiest way to look “resilient” in 2025 is to cut until the balance sheet screams. So yeah, Amazon started the week with layoffs. UPS ended it by nuking an army. Whatta time to be alive. Until next time, friends…

 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Amazon as mentioned in the article.