US Postal Service recovers from poor holiday showing in 2020

PORTLAND, Maine – The U.S Postal Service pulled retired each the stops to debar a repetition of the 2020 vacation shipping disaster, and it worked.

The Postal Service and respective different backstage shippers reported that vacation play deliveries went smoothly for the astir part.

ShipMatrix, which analyzes shipping bundle data, reported that 96.9% of the Postal Service’s shipments were connected clip during a two-week play successful December. Overall, it was a large betterment crossed the committee compared with past year, erstwhile much than a 3rd of first-class message was precocious by the clip Christmas arrived.

“We’re blessed to person brought each of the bully vacation cheer that we could,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents much than 200,000 postal workers.

Leading up to the holidays, determination were dire warnings of proviso concatenation problems and shipping delays. In the end, shoppers heeded proviso concatenation warnings by ordering and shipping items earlier, portion much radical opted to store successful stores than the twelvemonth before, said Satish Jindel, ShipMatrix president successful Pennsylvania.

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The Postal Service installed 112 caller bundle sorting machines, transitioned much than 60,000 pre-career employees to the ranks of vocation employees, hired 40,000 seasonal employees and leased other abstraction astatine much than 100 locations since past year, officials said.

As a bonus, the fig of quarantined postal workers was little than past year, though they're trending upward.

With caller standards that extended the deadline connected immoderate long-distance mail, the work reported 89.8% of first-class parcels delivered connected clip done the archetypal 12 weeks of the quarter, and anticipated 12 cardinal pieces of message and packages would beryllium delivered betwixt Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

During the play betwixt Dec. 12-21, UPS and FedEx besides saw on-time transportation rates topping 90%, Jindel said. They, too, bolstered their workforces, hiring much than 190,000 further workers to beryllium amended prepared for the vacation peak.

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For the U.S. Postal Service, astir 6,500 postal workers were nether COVID-19 quarantine connected Christmas Eve, which was amended than the twelvemonth earlier erstwhile 19,000 workers were retired astatine the December peak, according to the American Postal Workers Union.

But those numbers are growing. This week, the fig of quarantined workers grew to astir 8,000, the national said.

Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said obstacles similar the pandemic and quarantines supply staffing challenges, but “they don’t change the mission.”

The U.S. Postal Service declined to remark connected the quarantine figures, but “we tin guarantee you that the Postal Service does person resources successful place, including capable staffing, to conscionable the work needs of our customers, present and successful the future,” said spokesperson Kim Frum.

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