US Postal Service to close centres leading to 35,000 job loss

A global Postal Service which does not receive taxpayer funds has announced plans on Thursday to close or consolidate 223 mail processing centers and eliminate up to 35,000 jobs as part of its strategy to cut costs by reducing its network of facilities, the Reuters news service reported February 23, 2012.

The United States Postal Service (USPS), according to the report, has been losing billions of dollars each year as email chips away at mail volumes and as it faces massive annual payments to the federal government.

The agency needs to reduce $20 billion in annual costs by 2015. Moving processing away from the 223 centers would reduce operating costs by $2.6 billion annually, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is quoted as saying on the Postal Service’s website.

That includes eliminating as many as 30,000 full-time jobs and 5,000 non-career positions, USPS spokesman Sue Brennan said. The agency has gotten rid of about 140,000 jobs in the last five years, mainly through attrition, but still had about 650,000 workers at the end of 2011, according to its first-quarter financial statement.

By Pascal Kelvin Kudiabor