Welcome to second day of this week of busting postal myths. We are echoing the points made in PMG Jack Potter’s Washington Post editorial earlier this month.
Yesterday we talked about the “taxpayer supported” myth.
Today, we’ll address Myth #2: “The Postal Service is inefficient”
Did you know that ten years ago, it took 70 employees one hour to sort 35,000 letters? Today, in that same hour, just two employees process that same volume of mail.
Though the number of addresses in the nation has grown by nearly 18 million in the past decade, the number of employees who handle the increased delivery load has decreased by more than 200,000.
We deliver half of the world’s mail volume at one of the lowest prices.
Since 2002, the Postal Service has cut costs by $43 billion, including $9 billion last year. We’ve done it through workforce and overtime reduction, renegotiation of supplier contracts, consolidation of facilities, closing of administrative offices, and cuts in travel and supplies.
Losing money? Yes. Inefficient? Hardly.
What do you think about this myth? Comment here.
Tomorrow's myth. The Post Office is unreliable.
5 comments:
You make some very good points. I was reading an article that states that we have cut our craft work force by nearly 25% in the past year. If that is true, why did the HQ staff increase? It would be logical to conclude that if we have less people to supervise, that we would need less supervisors. That is not what I would call efficient!
How long did it take you to work a tray of letters?? 70 clerks to work 35,000 in a hours....that equals 500 letters per hour or 8.33 letters per minute. Who could ever work mail that slowly? I don't buy that math....
You can make numbers work out to show whatever you want but the bottom line is we are inefficient in some areas. We hire clerks and carriers to work at a certain level but don't hold them to it. We "are" top heavy which gives the perception of being inefficient. Dollar for dollar we need to make adjustments in staffing (top down not bottom up).
i agree with top done.they need to start with supervisors. there are to many.
start at Mr. Potters office then on down and leave small offices alone.sure where there are 3 offices within 10 miles , i can understand this is not cost effective.but come on all the extra expenses out there.
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