UPS Cuts 30,000 Jobs to Shift Away From Amazon Deliveries
United Parcel Service (UPS) said it will eliminate up to 30,000 operational jobs in 2026 as it accelerates a strategic retreat from Amazon deliveries, a long-running but low-margin business that once anchored its global network. The announcement, made during a quarterly earnings call on January 27, came even as the logistics giant reported results that beat market expectations, sending its shares up 4 per cent.
The job cuts, set to unfold through voluntary buyouts, attrition and a further wave of facility closures, mark the next phase of a sweeping overhaul that has already cost roughly 48,000 positions in 2025. UPS executives framed the move as a necessary recalibration—shrinking the company’s physical footprint to match a deliberate pullback from Amazon volumes and a pivot toward higher-margin sectors.
A Calculated Pullback From Amazon
At the centre of the strategy is an agreement reached with Amazon in January 2025 to slash shipment volumes by more than 50 per cent by mid-2026. By the end of last year, UPS had already cut Amazon deliveries by one million parcels per day. Another million pieces per day are scheduled to come off the network over the course of 2026.
Chief executive Carol Tome described the period ahead as the final leg of a carefully staged retreat. “We’re in the final six months of our Amazon accelerated glide down plan, and for the full year, 2026, we intend to glide down another million pieces per day, while continuing to reconfigure our network,” she told analysts.
The metaphor of a “glide down” is apt. Rather than a sudden break, UPS is trimming back a massive flow of parcels that once filled trucks and aircraft but increasingly weighed on profits. Amazon’s scale brought volume, but at rates that left thin margins and little room for volatility.
How 30,000 Jobs Will Be Cut
UPS employs about 490,000 people worldwide, and the planned reductions will focus largely on operational roles, including drivers. The company said it will rely heavily on voluntary buyouts for full-time drivers, alongside natural attrition, to limit forced redundancies.
Facilities will also bear the brunt of the reset. UPS confirmed that 24 buildings will close in the first half of 2026. This follows a bruising year in which the company shut daily operations at 93 buildings in the first nine months of 2025 and announced closures of more than 70 facilities last April.
Chief financial officer Brian Dykes said the approach mirrors what the company did in the previous year. “This is a tactical move… We did something similar last year in order to help us to right-size the position levels and the network infrastructure with the new volume and delivery levels,” he said.
Investors Applaud, Workers Bristle
Wall Street’s reaction was swift and positive. The earnings beat and the clear outline of further cost reductions lifted UPS shares by 4 per cent, as investors signalled approval of management’s focus on profitability over sheer scale.
For workers, the mood is more guarded. The Teamsters union, which represents a large portion of U.S.-based UPS employees, responded pointedly after the announcement. “UPS workers know their worth and expect the company to honor its contracts,” the union said, underscoring the tension between belt-tightening and labour protections.
While voluntary measures soften the immediate blow, the cumulative effect is stark. By the end of 2026, UPS will have shed close to 80,000 jobs across two years—a contraction rarely seen at a company long viewed as a bellwether of global trade.
A Shift Toward Higher-Margin Deliveries
Behind the cuts lies a broader strategic bet. UPS has been reallocating capital and capacity toward areas such as healthcare logistics, where time-sensitive deliveries and specialised handling command higher margins. The company argues that a smaller, more flexible network—less dependent on a single giant customer—will be better suited to an era of uneven global demand.
It is, in effect, an attempt to trade bulk for precision: fewer parcels, but more profitable ones.
What It Means for Malta and Beyond
The shake-up has no direct employment impact in Malta, where UPS does not operate large distribution hubs and relies largely on regional partners for international forwarding. Locally, express logistics and e-commerce deliveries are dominated by European carriers and domestic firms, insulating the island from the immediate fallout.
Indirectly, shifts in global logistics can ripple through pricing and capacity, particularly for cross-border trade. As major carriers rebalance away from low-margin volume, smaller markets like Malta often watch closely, alert to changes in shipping costs and delivery times. For now, however, the impact remains largely theoretical.
A Leaner Giant Emerges
UPS’s latest announcement underscores how even the world’s largest logistics firms are being reshaped by changing trade patterns and the growing power of mega-customers like Amazon. The company is choosing to shrink in order to protect margins, betting that investors will reward discipline over scale.
With shares rising and another year of cuts mapped out, the message from management is clear: the era of growth at any cost is over. Whether a leaner UPS can deliver steadier returns—without further straining its workforce—will be the test that follows.
