It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas … at least at the post office. The U.S. Postal Service is busy getting its holiday shipping plans together, and the agency has its work cut out for it.
In a strange twist, America’s mail carrier may find itself with too many workers and cargo capacity for parcels. According to a report by consulting firm ShipMatrix, package carriers (including the Postal Service) will be able to handle about 110 million parcels per day this holiday season. But consumer demand will average only 92 million parcels daily, resulting in excess capacity and cost unless carriers keep their networks nimble.
The Postal Service can sleigh its red ink by right-sizing operations and embracing smart hiring.
The Postal Service has already announced that it will be hiring 30,000 seasonal employees for the December rush. This is a sizeable shift from the agency’s usual practice of hiring 35,000 to 40,000 seasonal workers and a hopeful sign that the service is factoring in demand forecasts. These new workers, however, are unlikely to be genuinely “seasonal.” The agency recently announced that “the Postal Service has converted more than 100,000 employees from part time to full time, career positions since the beginning of 2021.”