Originally Posted by FTFF

I've been looking at this a little from a "are we going to have another stagnation period/furlough," perspective. Here's some thoughts I've gathered from others: Short term hiring looks good. Longer term, after the 74 and IF any options are exercised, is anyone's guess. We do know the MD's will be going sooner rather than later and the bookies think they will be replace by larger payload aircraft which won't do anything to help hiring numbers. Domestically, its pretty clear we are in a shift from Business to Business (B2B) shipping to B2 Customer (B2C) with ubiquitous transitions to online retail. As the domestic air district's main value being next day and second day service, this transition to B2C (and Amazon flying more and more of their own volume inhouse) could weaken demand for our Air service and negatively affect hiring. International is where the growth area is, at least according to numerous recent UPS sources. Restrictions to trade, opting out of things like TPP aren't ideal for us. Long term really isn't looking particularly good for hiring at this point, with retirement numbers about the only positive exception. Albie once mentioned that hiring at FedEx comes in big waves of large movements interspersed by years of nothing. Seems to be the same for us. Get on while it's hot if you can.