The Postal Service, having struggled with employee availability issues since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, is telling Congress it has the stable workforce it needs to meet high expectations for this year’s holiday season.
Gregory White, USPS executive manager of strategic initiatives, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s subcommittee on government operations that service performance “is much better now” than in the lead-up to the holiday seasons in 2021 and 2020.
“We are not the organization we were two years ago, during the challenging 2020 peak season, amidst a global pandemic,” White said Wednesday. “While headwinds remain, we are now structured for precision. We are an organization better positioned to meet the country’s evolving mailing and shipping needs, working to do so in a financially self-supporting manner.”
USPS is hiring 20,000 seasonal employees to prepare for its peak season holiday operations, less than half the number of temporary hires it has recruited in recent years. Last year, USPS hired more than 51,000 temporary employees to prepare for its busy year-end period, according to a USPS inspector general report released this summer.