FedEx Ground Expansion

One of my responsibilities at FedEx is to communicate to the world about FedEx Ground news and achievements, and when we decided to focus part of our blog on “Economics & Access”, I decided to use this forum to share some of the details of our nationwide expansion that is creating jobs and opportunities in communities across the country despite highly volatile and challenging economic conditions.

This major expansion of the FedEx Ground network got underway in 2002, and we’ve already built seven new major distribution hubs and expanded or relocated 500 local facilities, creating thousands of new opportunities for employees and independent contractors.  In a time when it seems that not a day goes by without a news report of a major company closing locations, laying off thousands of workers or filing for bankruptcy protection, it makes our continued expansion and economic development in local communities across the country that much more gratifying.

Once such community is Kernersville, North Carolina (outside of Greensboro), where I recently had the opportunity to attend a groundbreaking for a new distribution hub.  Despite a rare November snowstorm, dozens of community leaders and news crews from around the state joined us as we symbolically shoveled the first North Carolina red clay in what will be a 400,000 square-foot facility scheduled to open in 2011.  The new hub will feature state-of-the-art technology, and we expect that it will eventually process 45,000 packages per hour when it reaches full capacity.  The initial workforce at opening is projected to include more than 400 full-time and part-time employees and about 250 independent contractor opportunities.

These new and expanded locations have already allowed us to further enhance the FedEx Ground speed and quality advantage for our customers.  Since 2003, we have accelerated ground service by one day or more in more that half the United States, and we now deliver more than half of our ground packages in two days or less.  Customers are taking notice, as our average daily package volumes have increased by more than 50% from 2.1 million in 2003 to more than 3.3 million today.