All Posts Tagged With: "retiree health benefits"
2009 resulted in a HUGE loss for the USPS; Expect more in 2010.
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Tue, Nov 17 2009 | 0 Comments
The United States Postal Service announced today that it has posted a nearly $4 billion loss for the fiscal year 2009. As bad as that may seem, it is only half of what it is expecting to lose in the fiscal year 2010.
Chief Financial Officer for the Post Office had this to say in a statement, “Our 2009 fiscal year proved to be one of the most challenging in the history of the Postal Service. The deep economic recession, and to a lesser extent, the ongoing migration of mail to electronic alternatives, significantly affect all mail products, creating a large imbalance between revenues and costs.”
The loss is a record for the service and comes even after $6 billion in cost cutting measures were taken. It also had a $4 billion reduction in health benefits payments to retired postal workers. It also cut 40,000 jobs across the country in 2009.
The problems came from the fall in total mail volume. It fell nearly 13%; which translates to shipping 25 billion fewer pieces of mail this year versus last year.
The Postal Service has to do something to be more efficient. At what point in time can it stop blaming people using email and other electronic forms of media for its falling revenues? The postal service has been losing money for years now and it really hasn’t done much except for the past year when it cut 40,000 jobs and stopped paying on retiree health benefits. With as much money as it is losing, there has to be something else that it can do to help itself.
Then again, most things that are run by the government are really good at being inefficient and hemorrhaging money. I suppose when you take that into consideration then seeing how much money that the postal service is losing, it isn’t too much of a surprise.
Related posts:UPS says that the busiest shipping day of the year will be December 21
Tags: postal workers, economic recession, mail products
Changes could be coming to a post office near you soon
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Aug 06 2009 | 1 Comment
You can thank the recession, e-mail, and e-billing for the latest round of losses the United States Postal Service has posted. The USPS said that it operated at a $2.4 billion loss for the months of April through June. This means that for the year, the post office has lost a total of $4.7 billion and will likely lose up to $7 for the fiscal year (which ends September 30).
Postmaster General John Potter said, ‘What has occurred in the economy is unprecedented and it has created a much greater challenge than we can respond to quickly. We’re trying to navigate our way through a challenging period of time.”
Over the past few years, the total amount of mail per volume has declined. If you add in the recession with that, then the volume of mail has taken a sharp turn south. People simply aren’t sending letters anymore. Most of the change came when it became so much easier just to sign up for e-bill payment and you wouldn’t have to worry with stamps and how long it takes for something to get to the recipient, it’s instant.
So, things could be changing at the USPS soon. These changes include:
- Cutting the work week to five days instead of the current six.
- Closing several hundred offices.
- Selling post office buildings and relocating to space that is leased.
There is already a hiring freeze in place. Salaries have also been frozen. However, these freezes don’t help out with the $5.5 billion a year that the post office has to spend for retiree health benefits. These funds aren’t required by other government agencies. If the post office were to do away with the benefits, then it would have operated at a small profit last year and would have only lost around $2 billion this year instead of the projected $7 billion.
In the previous year, the number of mail pieces has fallen 9.5 billion pieces and is expected to fall by an additional 28 billion this year.
Related posts:2009 resulted in a HUGE loss for the USPS; Expect more in 2010.
UPS says that the busiest shipping day of the year will be December 21
The Pitch – Do you think the recession is coming to a close?
Tags: other government agencies, e mail, retiree health benefits
