WASHINGTON — The United States Postal Service reported new delivery performance metrics through the final week of the fiscal year 2023 first quarter. As volume increased due to the holiday rush, the average time to deliver a mailpiece or package across the postal network remained 2.5 days for the tenth consecutive week.
FY23 preliminary first quarter service performance scores covering Oct. 1 through Dec. 30 included:
- First-Class Mail: 90.1% of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 2.1 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter. The current data reflects a year over year increase of 1 percentage point compared to the same period in the FY22 peak holiday season.
- Marketing Mail: 94.0% of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a slight decrease of 0.8 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter. The current data reflects a year over year increase of 1.8 percentage points compared to the same period in the FY22 peak holiday season.
- Periodicals: 84.7% of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a decrease of 2.1 percentage points from the fiscal fourth quarter. The current data reflects a year over year increase of 3.8 percentage points compared to the same period in the FY22 peak holiday season.
USPS delivery was impacted in some local markets due to industry-wide transportation disruptions caused by winter storms across the Midwest and the East Coast in late December. The Postal Service continues to restore service in these markets as quickly and as safely as possible.
The Postal Service’s preparedness for the holiday season reflected strategic investments and operational precision improvements made as part of the Delivering for America plan over the past two years. In November, the organization completed the installation of 137 new package sorting machines across its network which expanded daily package processing capacity to 60 million. USPS installed a total of 249 new processing machines since the launch of the Delivering for America plan in March 2021, part of a $40 billion investment in the postal network.
Additionally, USPS stabilized its permanent workforce by converting more than 100,000 workers to full time roles since the beginning of 2021(with more than 41,000 part time workers converted to full time since January 2022), and successfully hiring an additional 20,000 seasonal employees.
The Postal Service will report final holiday service performance numbers in mid-January.