USPS staffing down 5.7% from a year ago

[manOman]

http://www.postalnewsblog.com/2009/08/13/usps-staffing-down-5-7-from-prior-year/

Reports filed with the Postal regulatory Commission show that as of July 17, the US Postal Service has reduced its field staff by 5.7%, or 37,454 employees from the same period last year. (All numbers cited refer to actual employees on the rolls, not authorized positions).

The largest reductions among bargaining unit employees, as in the past, have come in the clerk craft, which lost 16,023 employees, or 8.1%. City carriers were down by 5.2%, or 11,135 employees. The smaller mail handler craft lost 2,829, or 5% of its members. Career rural carriers, who are compensated on an evaluation basis, and generally earn significantly less than their city counterparts, lost just 974 employees, or 1.4%.

Supervisors, managers and administrative staffing in the field was reduced by 3,468 employees, or 8.4%. Headquarters lost 88 staff, or 3.1%.

The bad news for the USPS is that the complement reductions so far have not translated to any significant cost reductions. Thanks to salary and benefit increases, the USPS has paid out almost exactly the same amount in base salaries and benefits this year as it did in 2008. The $1 billion the agency has managed to save in compensation costs this year has come entirely from reductions in overtime. Sustaining that level of savings solely from overtime in the future will be difficult if not impossible.

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I've been looking at USPS staffing over the last 10 years, and some trends stand out. Unfortunately, they've "reclassified" some of the staffing categories, so they are more difficult to compare.  When looking at the rural #'s, notice the part I italicized, and recall that the rural craft is adding significantly more delivery points than the city.

[idontlikerocks]

i think it is also important to point out that supervisor ranks were down 8.4 % while rural full timers are down just 1.4 %.  if this trend were to continue for another 6 years , i believe we would be much closer to balancing our books.  i suspect health care costs are responsible for our inability to reduce costs through attrition.   while the cost of living increases have been in the low single digits for most of the last 5 years, i imagine that health care costs have continued their annual double digit growth.