USPS may lay off 120,000 workers

[Brian Elfert]

The USPS (Post Office) is supposedly laying off 120,000 workers. This will be quite the blow to the economy as most of these workers make a good wage for mostly minimal skill jobs. Without retraining it will be hard for many of them to make the same kind of wages ever again.

I wonder what other changes the USPS is making. I don't know how they can possibly reduce 20% of their workforce without some service changes. I will be sad to see 6 day delivery go because I order stuff via Priority Mail all the time knowing that Saturday is considered a delivery day. I can order something on Friday and still get it Monday and not pay overnight shipping.

[Richard Link]

I believe that they are planning to close a large number of post offices (about 3700). They also mentioned losing saturday delivery. I guess there are some consequences to electronic mail...

[Gary Max]

Richard is correct---they have already made the list of locations they plan on shutting down. The county seat where I live is on the list.

[ray hampton]

one post office that I go to is usual back up all the way to the door between 20 to 30 customers

[Brian Elfert]

One of the problems with Post Office customer service is they are a monopoly and there is no profit incentive to improve customer service. A for-profit retail store knows you won't come back if you have to wait too long. Retail stores will add another clerk or have a manager help out if lines are long. I constantly see employees in the back of post offices and wonder why they can't be out front helping when it is busy.

You can't exactly walk out the door if it is busy and drive down the block to a competing letter delivery service.

Most Post Office clerks seem to work at a slow deliberate pace. It doesn't help that their work spaces aren't optimized for speed. They shouldn't have to leave their station for 90% of what they do.

[Dave Lehnert]

That is so sad.
I have been unemployed for over a year except for a temporary job this past spring. I feel for them. I had my old job for 24 years. at 9am was told to order product for the up coming week. 11am handed a paper the company was sold and all employees terminated.
People who have had good paying jobs is in for a shock when they go to apply for other jobs. Places that use to start out at $20+ HR has dropped that to $12.xx hr. Just because they can with high unemployment.

[Brian Elfert]

I just read something today about how bad the union work rules are at the Postal Service. A worker doing data entry cannot touch a package. When the sorters get behind and the data entry person has no work he or she can't go over and help the sorters catch up. The union's premise is that if others were alowed to help then the sorters might get less hours. Management is also not allowed to touch packages for the similar reasons.

I think these work rules cost employers more money than anything. If it takes 75 employees with work rules maybe it would only take 50 employees if half or all of the workers could do multiple jobs depending on work load.

[Belinda Barfield]

I went to the post office the other day to mail a check to a business with a PO box at that post office. The envelope was put on a truck, went south to the regional sorting center in Jacksonville, got sorted and put on another truck headed back to Savannah's main post office where it was put on another truck and taken back to the original post office. I wonder much money would have been saved if the person who removed the envelope from the drop box turned around and put it in the PO box. Probably not much for that one envelope but implement the same procedure for all of the other local mail and I bet it would save a bundle.

[David Weaver]

Sooner or later, if they can't replace the good paying letter mail with packages or something, they're not going to be able to keep staffing levels up.

I'm sure, as has been stated, that the inability of people to jump in at the counter has to do with work role definitions in the work contracts.

Fingers will get pointed at management, union, whatever, but the underlying issue is that the nature of the business is changing and the money coming in isn't there while expenses, controllable (labor, pension, etc.) and not (fuel, etc), are probably only going to continue to go up.

I personally really like the post office. I use them instead of UPS whenever I can, because from an individual shippers standpoint, it is almost always cheaper for me to use priority mail than UPS ground, especially since UPS went public and they've started adding surcharges left and right. I don't ship that much stuff (as in, I only sell stuff I've used and decided I don't need), especially large stuff. Last I tried to ship something small UPS, it was $11 or $12, and the same thing priority was $7. There was a $3 residential surcharge, which is ridiculous - and that was directly from my UPS account online, not at a shipping counter. Their charges are beginning to look like cell phone bills, and it's pretty easy to tell they are not interested in business from individuals.

I'll miss the POs service on packages if they cut that back or if they increase rates, and there are a few folks at the PO I go to who are saints and very helpful to everyone (large suburban fast-paced p.o, different than the rural P.o. I grew up near).

Couple of years ago, I had to ship tuners to a banjo maker in italy. Tiny item, tiny box. I went to UPS to find out how much it would cost to ship, and they ran through the motions and told me $55 (that was for the lowest/slowest service rate!!). The person at the counter got all huffy when I told them I was going to look around and try to find a better rate, as if I had put them out effort-wise to get a rate and then not ship. I think it cost me $6 at the post office when I did ship it, air mail less than a week it was delivered. Way less than a pound, and 1/3rd or smaller than a box of tissues.

[Dan Friedrichs]

This will be quite the blow to the economy as most of these workers make a good wage for mostly minimal skill jobs. Without retraining it will be hard for many of them to make the same kind of wages ever again.

Not to be a jerk, but I just don't understand comments like this. Minimally-skilled employees should NOT BE MAKING "good wages". They should be making minimum wage. Paying an employee more than the market thinks they are worth just results in us (the customers) paying more for service.

[Matt Meiser]

Personally I think there are way too many post offices. In the last year I've probably been to the PO a handful of times. A couple to drop off packages, that I already paid for shipping online, because I missed the mail carrier and wanted them to go out that day. Those could have just waited another day. Once to apply for a passport. And once to pick up a certified letter that came when I wasn't home (and it was a mistake that it was even sent to me.) Yet there are 5 post offices within about 5 miles of my house and I live in a rural area. Go out to 10 miles and I bet there are 10+. Why do we need that many?

And looking at the average age of the people working in those offices, most would probably retire if the jobs went away.

[David Weaver]

There are people in the world who are not capable of working something more than minimally skilled jobs. Not being mean spirited by saying that, it is the case. To think any adult should be paid minimum wage to do a job that is necessary, just because the skill set might not seem like doctor/lawyer work is a really thin grasp on reality and what it takes to just get by in society (and I don't work low-skilled work, so I'm not defending myself here).

As you get older, and you see people who have taken a few bumps and bruises over their lifetime, or been saddled with circumstances (beyond their control) that don't fit the cookie cutter go to school, go to college, go to get graduate degree (if needed), go to the workforce progression, your view will likely soften a little bit. I would hope.

I'm not that old, but I do a lot of labor-related work, and I see all of the different viewpoints from different employers. Fortunately, the number of employers who would actually treat employers like that are few.

[keith jensen]

The article that I read stated 220,000 total jobs of which they estimate 100,000 of them will be through attrition. This means they are going way deeper than getting the older folks to retire.

[Dan Friedrichs]

To think any adult should be paid minimum wage to do a job that is necessary, just because the skill set might not seem like doctor/lawyer work is a really thin grasp on reality and what it takes to just get by in society (and I don't work low-skilled work, so I'm not defending myself here).

I do see what you're saying, but it's not the job of the USPS to equalize class disparity. The lucky few who get jobs that pay much more than their market value are just...lucky. The point of minimum wage is to ensure that unskill-able people can make a decent living.

Any other business would not be paying people significantly more than their market rate if it wanted to stay profitable and competitive.

[Stephen Tashiro]

I haven't worked for the postal service, but I don't think postal work should be classified as "minimally skilled". At least some of those jobs require taking a competitive examination, so they require aptitude, if not education. People that can get along in the bureacracy of a big company have a skill that big companies need.