FedEx and UPS—two of America’s biggest employers—have been publicly pushing tax cuts as job creators even as they plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a coming wave of automation at their distribution centers and along their delivery lines, corporate documents show.
Neither company has said what effect their automation plans may have on their job numbers, but both FedEx and UPS are also actively developing new technology designed to expand automation, according to patent applications reviewed by TYT. One UPS executive told Wall Street analysts new automation initiatives currently being planned will be coming online as late as 2020.