By Denny Jacob and Esther Fung

United Parcel Service said it is cutting 20,000 operational positions this year, moving to slash expenses after breaking ways with Amazon.com, its biggest customer.

UPS, which has nearly 490,000 employees, has been looking to shrink its operations after deciding in January to reduce the amount of packages it delivers for Amazon. The e-commerce giant accounted for about 12% of UPS's revenue.

UPS also expects to close 73 leased and owned buildings this year. Last year, it closed 11 buildings and cut 12,000 jobs, mainly managerial roles. About 330,000 of its workers are represented by the Teamsters.

Sean O'Brien, the Teamsters president, said UPS is obligated to create 30,000 Teamsters jobs under the current contract. He said the union wouldn't object if UPS downsizes management but "UPS will be in for a hell of a fight" if it moves to eliminate Teamsters jobs.

Executives at the delivery company said it is going to be less dependent on labor, which includes adding automation to its facilities including label application, as well as loading and unloading trailers.

Chief Executive Carol Tomé said actions by UPS to reconfigure its network and reduce costs couldn't be timelier given the uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment. Tariffs are a major point of uncertainty, she said.

For the second quarter, executives said they expect lower volume and revenue in both domestic and international operations. They declined to update the outlook for the full year because of economic uncertainty.

The company said it expects to record between $400 million and $600 million in restructuring expenses during 2025. For the first quarter, UPS recorded net income of $1.19 billion on revenue of $21.5 billion, results that were better than Wall Street's expectations.

Write to Denny Jacob at denny.jacob@wsj.com and Esther Fung at esther.fung@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 29, 2025 18:09 ET (22:09 GMT)

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