With Lowest Holiday Staffing In Recent Years, USPS Aims To Hire 20,000

ACROSS AMERICA— Heading into its busiest season with far fewer workers than in recent years, the U.S. Postal Service is going on a hiring spree, hoping to fill 20,000 seasonal jobs to avoid a repeat of record delivery delays two years ago.

A tight labor market is complicating efforts to fill positions before packages start piling up. The national unemployment rate is around 3.7 percent.

Under pressure from Congress to carve a path of financial sustainability for the Post Office, officials told a House oversight committee Wednesday that even if the hiring goals are met, the agency will enter the holiday season with fewer workers and less facility space than it had last year at this time.

The number of seasonal positions is less than half of last year’s request for 45,000 temporary jobs, and down from 28,000 positions Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had originally asked to fill for the 2022 holiday season.

Agency and postal union officials told the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s panel on Government Operations that with better training and efficiency measures, postal employees are well positioned to deliver 60 million packages a day even with lower staffing, according to a report from Government Executive, a business news site.

“We never have enough people, but we manage. We move people around, and we use overtime,” United Postmaster and Managers of America president Edmund Carley told lawmakers. “It will be a successful season, I’m sure.”

Space is also an issue. The Postal Service has leased only 25 of the 88 additional annexes it needs for package storage, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general submitted to the committee. That could mean mail will be shifted to other facilities, or stored in temporary tents.

The bottom line for Americans is to get cards and packages in the mail well ahead of 2022 USPS holiday deadlines.

The following are the recommended “send-by-dates for expected delivery” before Sunday, Dec. 25, in the lower 48 states:

• Retail Ground: Saturday, Dec. 17
• First-Class Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail: Monday, Dec. 19
• Priority Mail Express: Friday, Dec. 23

The following dates are the recommended last days for shipping holiday gifts from Alaska for delivery by Sunday, Dec. 25:

• Ground: Friday, Dec. 2
• First-Class Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail Express: Wednesday, Dec. 21

The following dates are the recommended last days for shipping holiday gifts from Hawaii for delivery by Sunday, Dec. 25:

• First-Class Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail Express: Wednesday, Dec. 21

Shipping deadlines for international mail range from Nov. 29-Dec. 6. The ground shipping deadline for military service members has already passed. First-class and priority mail deadlines are Dec. 9; the deadline for Priority Mail Express Military service is Dec. 16.