Spring Break? Passover? Easter? It’s here already and Summer isn’t far behind. As companies get ready for peak season at the end of this year (and plan and prepare for 2018, as is our industry timing), we move into Summer with great plans for clients as well as some interesting prospects for work in the U.S. and globally.
I. With Summer on the way Amazon is reporting that they are adding 30,000 part-time jobs in the U.S.. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 25,000 of the jobs will be warehouse based and another 5,000 will be home based customer service jobs. The article goes on to report, “Amazon has nearly 40,000 part-time U.S. employees, and those working more than 20 hours a week receive benefits including dental and vision insurance and cash to purchase medical insurance or pay medical costs. Amazon hasn’t previously disclosed its part-time hiring plans.” Other companies like Ford Motor and Charter Communications are touting new job creations as well into the U.S. workforce.
II. Our work is global but we’re based here in Atlanta so any news about Georgia is of interest, especially if it involves our industry. The Savannah port expansion, mentioned here in Georgia Trend Magazine back in January 2016, is being discussed again, but now for has overages in both money and years. Projected completion is now 2022, which is a two-year extension. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the details from Griff Lynch, the executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority. He did acknowledge not being happy about the project delay in their interview but still maintains the economic investment, even with increased cost will still benefit Savannah and the state, and perhaps even more so because bigger ships being able to port.
III. If you can wait out the few second commercial on this Forbes article, you can read that two transportation companies merged, making a company of $5 billion now as Swift Transportation and Knight Transportation one entity. Forbes reported this “giant” transportation organization will be known as Knight-Swift Transportation.
IV. Last week reported that we spoke in a few sessions at the Operations Summit 2017 and the majority of what we and others spoke about was eCommerce. We are just putting the final touches on a white paper as a result of a presentation and it will be available soon (if you want details sooner rather than later, please contact us). While looking up statistics on eCommerce, we found a short report by the government – deep with numbers of course – on 4th quarter sales. Perhaps you want to set an alarm on your calendar for this, announced on their site:
Intention to Revise E-commerce Estimates: Quarterly retail e-commerce estimates will be revised based on the results of the 2015 Annual Retail Trade Survey. Revised not adjusted estimates and corresponding adjusted estimates are scheduled for release on May 16, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. EDT
As of September 8, 2020, Crimson & Co (formerly The Progress Group/TPG) has rebranded as Argon & Co following the successful merger with Argon Consulting in April 2018.