UPS: holiday outlook still cloudy

Dec. 21, the last Monday before Christmas, will be its busiest day this holiday season. The shipping giant's brown-clad drivers are expected to heft about 22 million packages worldwide that day, up 40 percent from normal daily deliveries.The bigger question -- both for UPS and the U.S. economy -- is how this year's shipping compares to recent years. Last month, UPS said it had mixed reports from clients about the holidays, with retail shops more bearish than bullish online retailers.Sandy Springs-based UPS plans to hire about 50,000 seasonal workers this year, down from 60,000 in 2007. About 1,300 of those jobs will be in metro Atlanta.

"We do believe that our overall peak season is going to be up slightly compared to last year," said UPS spokesman Norman Black. "We continue to get some real mixed signals from our customers. That's why we can't be more optimistic than that."

In all, UPS expects to deliver 400 million packages worldwide from Thanksgiving to Christmas, up slightly from the holiday season last year.

Monday brought optimistic signs elsewhere: Retail sales rose 1.4 percent in October, after dropping 2.3 percent in September, the government said. But excluding automobile sales, retail sales rose just 0.2 percent, half of what economists predicted.

“Though the October numbers show some signs of optimism for retailers, the industry is still not out of the woods,” said Rosalind Wells, the National Retail Federation's chief economist. The retail group continues to predict a 1 percent decline in holiday spending this year.

Last-minute shippers have until Dec. 23 to get items delivered by Christmas Eve, UPS said.

FedEx, meanwhile, said its peak air express day will be Dec. 21, though its peak for FedEx Express, FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight combined will be Dec. 14.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.