The U.S. Postal Service’s Hiring Spree

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has been on a hiring spree since the pandemic hit in mid-March. This is good news, with more than 40 million Americans looking for work. It is also another clear indication that USPS is not about to collapse before the election.

As listed below, USPS has issued 35 press releases about job opportunities since March 16, the day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued social distancing guidelines. By contrast, in the period from January 1- March 15, it issued only six such announcements.

A March 24 news release for Illinois, “It’s a Hiring Spree Postal Service Looking for Help,” says, “We are hiring hundreds of employees to work at processing facilities and Post Offices.” A May 1 announcement for the San Diego region says, “USPS needs to hire up to 500 employees immediately for the region.” This followed earlier announcements of 1,000 employees needed in the Bay Area and “hundreds” in Sacramento.

The Postal Service has also been recruiting 1,000 new employees in Minnesota, 200 in Denver and large numbers in Western Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and many other states.

The brunt of the hiring, though not all, is to help deliver packages, the volume of which has risen significantly since mid-March. For April 2020, USPS reported package volume rose 35 percent from April 2019.

The hiring also comes when many are claiming that the Postal Service will collapse by the election without a massive federal bailout. The Postal Service fueled this by requesting $89 billion in COVID-19 assistance on April 9 at a Congressional hearing via Zoom. Yet, on May 8 its own 10-Q quarterly financial statement said it “will have sufficient liquidity to continue operating through at least May 2021.”

All this underscores the need for holistic postal reform over the next 12 months, the core component of which is to define USPS’s mission so that it can be a sustainable, self-funding organization.

Last but not least, we owe a collective thanks to the hard-working men and women in the Postal Service who have continued to work through the pandemic. At the start of 2020, USPS had 495,000 career employees and 163,000 non-career employees, or temporary employees. If USPS were a company, it would be second to only Walmart in number of employees.

Below are the recent Postal Service hiring announcements. Titles are as they appear in the news releases.

U.S. Postal Service
Recent Hiring News Releases
March 16, 2020-June 2, 2020

Alaska – Postal service package surge creates more jobs, April 10

Arizona – Postal Service Hiring Help at Arizona Facilities, April 2

California – As many as 1,000 jobs open at Bay Area Post Offices, March 23

California (San Diego) – Surge in Packages Prompts Hiring, May 1

California – San Francisco district goes Virtual featuring Free Hiring Event, May 20

California – San Francisco District goes Virtual featuring Free Hiring Event, May 29

Colorado – Denver Postal Service to fill 200 Positions, March 19

Delaware – USPS is Hiring, May 14

District of Columbia – Postal Service Job Openings, April 9

Florida (South Florida) – U.S. Postal Service is Hiring in South Florida, April 9