A multibillion-dollar federal delivery contract awarded to FedEx coincided with a sharp rise in the company’s use of foreign workers, even as it carried out large-scale layoffs of U.S. employees across multiple states.
In December 2022, the U.S. Transportation Command selected FedEx and two other firms to provide package delivery services for government agencies under an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with a total face value of $2.24 billion, according to a report by GovCon Wire.
The award covered the Next Generation Delivery Service-2 program, with a base performance period running from April 1, 2023, through September 30, 2026, and options that could extend the work through September 30, 2030.
Since that award, publicly available immigration data show a substantial increase in FedEx’s hiring of foreign workers through the H-1B visa program.
According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services H-1B data hub, FedEx had roughly two dozen approved H-1B workers at the time of the contract award in 2022. Over the subsequent three years, the same database indicates the company has hired approximately 500 H-1B workers, with the sharpest increases occurring in 2024 and 2025. Much of that growth appears concentrated in Tennessee, where FedEx is headquartered, though filings list positions across several states.
Separately, data from a privately operated H-1B salary database indicate that some visa applications filed by FedEx for roles in Texas were lower-level business or technical jobs, including titles such as “DIGITAL MARKETING ADVISOR” and “ENGINEERING SPECIALIST ADVISOR,” with listed salaries generally ranging from about $100,000 to $115,000.
The database also shows that FedEx filed H-1B applications with listed start dates in Texas cities such as Plano during periods when the company was also reporting layoffs in those same regions. It is not immediately clear which of those applications were ultimately approved, as filings do not always result in approvals or hires.
At the same time, FedEx has been cutting hundreds of U.S. jobs, including in North Texas.
DOGE should mark that contract to be rescinded!