United Parcel Service (UPS) said Tuesday it plans to eliminate up to 30,000 operational jobs and shut down 24 facilities in 2026, as the world’s largest package delivery company pushes deeper into a strategy focused on higher-margin shipments and improved profitability.
The restructuring marks one of the most significant workforce reductions in UPS’s history and underscores how the logistics giant is reshaping its business amid shifting trade policies, rising competition, and changing shipping volumes.
The move follows an aggressive cost-cutting campaign already underway at UPS. In 2024, the company eliminated 48,000 jobs, launched driver buyout programs, and closed operations at 93 buildings, targeting roughly $3 billion in savings for the year.
Chief Financial Officer Brian Dykes said the upcoming cuts will largely avoid involuntary layoffs.
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The reductions, he explained during a post-earnings call, will be carried out mainly through attrition, adding that UPS expects to offer “a second voluntary separation program for full-time drivers.”
UPS employed about 490,000 workers globally, including nearly 78,000 in management, according to its 2024 annual report.
A key part of the company’s profit-driven strategy involves sharply reducing low-margin business tied to Amazon, its largest customer and increasingly a rival in logistics.
UPS announced last year that it would speed up plans to cut millions of Amazon-related deliveries, describing the business as “extraordinarily dilutive” to its margins.
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Chief Executive Officer Carol Tomé said the transition is now entering its final phase.
“We’re in the last six months of our Amazon accelerated glide-down plan,” Tomé told analysts, adding that UPS aims in 2026 to remove another one million packages per day from that business while continuing to redesign its network.
Despite announcing deep job cuts, investors responded positively to UPS’s latest financial results.
The company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $24.5 billion, exceeding Wall Street estimates of $24 billion, helped by better-than-expected pricing in both domestic and international shipments.
Analysts at Evercore ISI said UPS’s performance was driven by stronger revenue per package, extending a pricing trend that has surprised markets for several quarters.
UPS shares rose 2.8% in early trading, while rival FedEx climbed 2.5%, signaling broader confidence in the sector’s pricing discipline.
UPS projected 2026 revenue of $89.7 billion, up from $88.7 billion last year and above analysts’ expectations of $87.94 billion, according to LSEG data.
At the same time, the company is grappling with structural changes in global commerce. The end of duty-free “de minimis” exemptions for low-value e-commerce shipments in the U.S. has weighed on volumes, prompting UPS to recalibrate parts of its international business.
Tomé said the company operated in a “very dynamic macro environment” in 2025, citing changing global trade policies and heightened geopolitical risks as key challenges.
UPS also disclosed a $137 million non-cash, after-tax charge related to retiring its MD-11 aircraft fleet following a fatal crash in November. The company completed the phase-out of the fleet in the fourth quarter.
The move is part of a broader modernization of UPS’s air operations aimed at improving safety, fuel efficiency, and long-term operating costs.
With major facility closures and job reductions planned for 2026, UPS is signaling that its transformation is far from complete.
