MEMPHIS, TN— Buckle up your seatbelts, drivers, the holiday season’s expected to be a busy one.

Deloitte analysts forecast nearly $1-trillion in retail sales, a 4.5-percent growth during the upcoming holiday season. And FedEx expects to move more than 290 million shipments between Black Friday and Christmas Eve, an 8.8-percent increase in overall year-over-year peak seasonal volume.

The first three Mondays of December are expected to surpass 20 million shipments in volume each and Dec.15 is projected to be the busiest day in FedEx’s history, with a forecasted 22.6 million shipments moving around the world.

FedEx said it is adding more than 50,000 seasonal positions across its operating companies, including package handlers, helpers, drivers and other support positions.

FedEx said it has experienced steady growth in holiday volumes over the years with its busiest day in 2007 happening on Dec. 17 when it handled 11.5 million shipments in a single day, increasing to 22 million shipments handled on Dec. 13 of 2013, its busiest day last year.

What’s more, some researchers say shippers expect to pay higher rates for truckload and rail intermodal transportation in the busy holiday season and well into 2015. And another result of tight capacity: the shippers surveyed expect to rely increasingly on freight brokers to help find trucks.