As a UPS warehouse employee outside Reno, Nevada, Christina Pixton spends her nights moving thousands of heavy packages en route to faraway locations like San Francisco, Phoenix, and Chicago.
But the warehouse isn’t air-conditioned, and there was no relief outside one night last month as smoke from wildfires in California more than 100 miles away created unsafe air quality. For Pixton, who has asthma, lung irritation was the latest challenge he had to learn to navigate in Reno.
These are boom times in and around Reno. Warehousing and casinos have long been the city’s main businesses, and with e-commerce soaring since the start of the pandemic, businesses are buying facilities as fast as they can be built.
But in Reno and the surrounding area, the cost of housing, gas, and groceries is also rising, making it increasingly difficult for many people like Pixton to get by in the growing metropolis. I’m here.
Gasoline prices have fallen to an average of $3.91 per gallon across the United States and $5.34 per gallon in Nevada. average The price in Reno is $5.75, according to AAA data. Mr. Pixton says it costs him $70 to $80 a week to fill up the Toyota Highlander.
According to Zillow, home prices in the area have risen 70% over the past five years. That’s good news for homeowners like Mr. Pixton. A typical home in Reno is valued at $568,103, up 10.2% over the past year. But the average rent for his one-bedroom apartment in Reno is up 10% from last year and 40% from three years ago, according to data from Zamper, which tracks housing data.
And while housing and planned communities are being developed where there used to be farmland, affordable housing has become a much debated issue among residents and policy makers. approved additional affordable housing projects in March. In neighboring Sparks, Mayor Ed Lawson is pushing for more dense development, encouraging development on state land.
Other changes are affecting Reno’s way of life. By the time Pixton, 37, ends his shift around 11 p.m. and wants to go shopping, the stores that once were open are now closed after curtailing hours during the pandemic. increase. When she makes it to Walmart or Target, she finds herself on the shelf due to ongoing supply chain problems and the fact that Walmart, one of the few locations in Mile, draws people from neighboring cities. I often find few items.
In a city whose economy depends partly on getting goods to people across the country, Pixton searched for frozen sandwiches from Uncrustables for her two sons and the perfect brand for the family’s Labrador Retriever. I am busy looking for dog food.
“This is not a sustainable pattern,” said Pixton, whose husband works as a foreman at an HVAC company. “We’re putting her six digits out and she’s still stuck in this struggling pattern.”
In May 2021, Mr. Pixton got a raise from $16 to $19 an hour. This was a market price adjustment that UPS introduced across the country to remain competitive in hiring and retaining workers.
However, it fell to $16 in January. As a union steward, Mr. Pixton was delivering bad news to other workers. Fifteen people quit that week, she said.
“It was hell,” Mr. Pixton said. “It wasn’t a full living salary, but it was something I could struggle with without having to take another job.”
A UPS spokesperson said after Oct. 2, another market rate adjustment brought part-time workers back to $19 an hour.
In recent years, e-commerce companies have flooded the market. With a population of approximately half a million people, the Reno Sparks area offers many criteria for companies looking to expand their backend operations. No state income tax, cheap land available, access to major interstates and international airports, a huge economy and millions of consumers who want to easily connect with their customers Its proximity to California is a key attraction for businesses.
In 2014, when Elon Musk came to Nevada to celebrate the opening of Tesla’s gigantic Gigafactory warehouse, which he intended to make batteries for the company’s electric vehicles, he followed up with other executives. I recommended it.
“What the people of Nevada have created is a very agile state, a state that can do things quickly and get things done,” Musk said at the time before state legislators. Told.
And follow what they did. Chewy, Amazon, Thrive Market, and Apple have opened or expanded warehouses in the region over the past decade. Third-party logistics companies such as OnTrac and Stord are also setting up new facilities in town.
Reno warehouse vacancy rates are just 0.5%, according to data from real estate services firm CBRE. About 8.8 million square feet are under construction in the Reno-Sparks area, about 80% of which is already rented, according to CBRE.
“We had a good market on a big trajectory averaging four million square feet, maybe five square feet,” said Eric Bennett, senior vice president of CBRE, which helps companies lease space. increase. “The pandemic has clearly increased absorption.”
Some of these companies have set up their own distribution channels to get their products where they are needed. Others use UPS. They all require hundreds of people to complete the arduous task of going through facilities and delivering goods to consumers.
“Hiring” signs dot Reno’s interstates and back roads. A chocolate factory was happy to pay $25 an hour. A sign outside Petco’s warehouse says starting wages could go up to $22 an hour. The Hidden Valley Ranch factory says the starting salary is $21 an hour, with other benefits such as a 401(k), paid time off, and dental and eye health care. Many retailers like Walmart are also trying to attract seasonal workers.
These opportunities will siphon off potential UPS workers and create more manual labor for those remaining, according to local Teamster business agent Ross Kinson.
Workers like Mr. Pixton.
Like many in Reno, she is a California transplant. She moved out of Chico with her now-husband John in 2008 when Reno was reeling from her housing crisis. The casino filed for bankruptcy. She worked in the medical and fast food industries before switching to warehouses.
She joined UPS in 2018, attracted by the healthcare benefits and pension package, and initially earning about $13 an hour. She works part-time and usually she works 28 hours to 32 hours a week. She stayed with her UPS even though other companies were offering higher wages. Because health insurance covers her children and her pension will vest in about a year.
When the pandemic hit, she felt the impact of millions of homebound shoppers buying all kinds of goods. Before Covid was introduced, about 70,000 packages passed through the hub on a typical summer night. In the summer of the 2020 pandemic, that number climbed to 240,000, but now he’s about 115,000 to 140,000 packages a night.
“Because we’re getting all the inbound local business, we’re handling the most packages in any shift. We’re accepting transfers from Sacramento, Oakland, and Salt Lake City,” she said. “Get all the inbound stuff from other states, and get the outbound stuff as well.”
Six people are considered the minimum workforce in her department, but Pixton often only had three or four people working, says Pixton.
As the holiday season approaches, UPS says: schedule It plans to employ about 100,000 employees and is speeding up the process by eliminating interviews and allowing candidates to apply online.At the hub where Mr. Pixton works, UPS trying to add 400 workers.
The current agreement UPS has with Teamsters was signed in 2018 and expires in 2023. Kinson said the union will push to formalize language on market-rate wage adjustments for part-time workers in upcoming contracts.
“We will negotiate in good faith,” UPS spokesman Glenn Zaccara said. “The wages they receive are industry leading.”
But in fast-growing cities like Reno, workers say their contract terms aren’t keeping up with reality.
“In this area, you’re forced to pay $19 an hour,” Kinson said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t work.”
Loni Goddard works for wellness company Kerala Ayurveda and rents an apartment in Reno. In 2020, her one bedroom apartment cost her $950 with internet and cable. When she re-signed her lease in April, her rent rose to her $1,490, which doesn’t include internet and cable.
“During the pandemic, everyone in Reno had a temporary raise,” Goddard said. “By the beginning of 2022, most or all of the pay increases are gone, and so are the people.”
With his job at UPS, Pixton is preparing for the holiday rush. However, she noted that every day is essentially peak season given the amount of work and fewer people doing it. Although we hope to reduce the workload of , we also understand why some people look elsewhere for work.
“If your income is less than your gas bill,” she said.