In its two hundred and forty years of service, the United States Postal Service has continued serving the citizens of the country with utmost dedication and excellent services. The journey has been characterized by many challenges, none more severe than the ones associated with the current landscape of employment opportunities at USPS.

The Dynamics Transforming the Landscape of United States Postal Service Jobs

The factor that is widely being considered to be the primary force of change are:

USPS’ restructuring reforms to improve its monetary growth.

The restructuring reforms have already started to impact the landscape of United States Postal Service jobs and experts believe the implications won’t be short term.

USPS Restructuring Reforms and Its Impact on Employment Opportunities at USPS

In the year 2016, USPS recorded profits for the first time in last five years. This had nothing to do with an increased number of mails and parcel deliveries. In fact, the postal service agency has seen a decline in mail deliveries to 154 billion—a figure being reported last year—in comparison to 213 billion deliveries serviced in 2007.

The first-class letter deliveries, the main source of profit, constitute a significantly low share of the delivered mails. So one thing is pretty clear, volume of mail deliveries do not constitute the reason behind the recorded profits.      

Then what has brought this improvement in the monetary growth?

It’s the cutting of expenses that has helped the organization to mark record profits over the last five years. Some of these measures include:

• The substitution of career workers with non-career contracted employees. These non-career employees are employed at much lower wages and monetary benefits that has allowed USPS to lower its overhead costs.

• A reduction in working hours by an average of 2.8 percent annually since 2006.

• A reduction in wages.

• Closing down mail processing plants and downsizing the distribution network.

Although these measures have helped the agency to cut its expenses and improve the profits, it has raised concerns among employees currently working at USPS and applicants looking to apply for United States Postal Service jobs.  

If the agency continues to sideline the need for career-employees and keep closing down its operation units, there could be lesser United States Postal Service jobs in future.

Moreover, these steps are not considered by many as a reliable strategy in long term.

• The strategy translates to lower quality customer services that will in turn have a negative effect on the growth of the organization.

• The over-reliance over non-career employees can present a long term problem for the agency as these employees have high turnover rates. This can affect the capacity of future operations as well as cause a net monetary loss. The agency will have to continuously reinvest in training and hiring of new employees to replace the outgoings.

The concerns surrounding the landscape of United States Postal service jobs and the future of the agency itself are well found. However, we cannot doubt the organization’s two hundred and forty years old history in the business.  We hope USPS manages to prove others wrong and embark itself on a new era. It is still a dream employer for many in the US.