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Comment by valianteffort | Hacker News Reader

Just pay them a million a year each, why should they be anything short of rich?

Even if the company could afford to pay the drivers $170k/yr without increasing shipping costs, they're still going to increase shipping costs. So this just gets passed on to the consumer rather than the company, much like tipping. And at a time when discretionary spending is down tremendous, this just means more people will get laid off. I will eat my hat if there are no mass layoffs in the next year.

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According to the article: UPS "now expects its adjusted operating margin this year to be 11.8%, down from 12.8% expected in May. The drop also reflects a fall in shipments as the economy weakens."

Their shipping prices are determined by what the market will pay and their competitors prices. Employee compensation affects UPS profit/stock price.

It depends on what you mean by mass layoffs. In post-Jack Welch America, there is ALWAYS some company doing massive RIFs. Often when they're already profitable.

I think your hat and your stomach are safe.

UPS makes about $75 Billion per year in profit. This is a $25k increase after a few years of record inflation. There are 300k teamsters at UPS (including other jobs like package handler). If 1/3 of those employees are drivers, we're talking a 3% reduction in profits. They can afford it. (also worth nothing this $170k is also including all benefits).

>this just means more people will get laid off.

The threat of a strike makes this much less likely.

Anecdotally UPS drivers are much, much better than Fedex and Amazon. They don't toss my packages or leave them sitting in the rain etc...

You are wrong. UPS does not make anything close to $75 B per year in profit.

Looks like they made $100B in revenue and $74B profit in 2022.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/UPS/ups/revenue

  UPS annual revenue for 2022 was $100.338B, a 3.14% increase from 2021.
  UPS annual revenue for 2021 was $97.287B, a 14.96% increase from 2020.
  UPS annual revenue for 2020 was $84.628B, a 14.22% increase from 2019.

  UPS annual gross profit for 2022 was $74.152B, a 3.08% increase from 2021.
  UPS annual gross profit for 2021 was $71.939B, a 12.32% increase from 2020.
  UPS annual gross profit for 2020 was $64.05B, a 13.61% increase from 2019.

You need to look at net profit not gross which is much smaller. The net profit margin 10%.

Why? Aren't salaries paid before obligations and taxes?

UPS just over 100 billion revenue and 11.55 billion NET profit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Parcel_Service

Strange how many in this thread don't get revenue vs profit.

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