The Postal Service will post a net loss of $1.9 billion on declining volumes of 88.1 billion pieces of mail for the six months ended March 31, 2010, and it says it will continue aggressive cost cutting measures.
It reported that work hours were reduced during the first half of the year by 49 million below the previous year.
At mid-year, the number of career employees stood at 594,000, a reduction of 47,000 compared to the previous year.
Total mail volume decreased 6.3 percent during the first half of the year, but managerial initiatives have reduced work hours by 12.7 percent in mail processing and 11.6 percent in customer services, said USPS.
Overall expenses have been reduced by $1.4 billion, or 3.8 percent below the previous year.
"Despite aggressive efforts to reduce costs, including the reduction in full-time equivalent employees by more than 120,000 since 2008, we are still experiencing unsustainable losses," said CFO Joseph Corbett.
Under 2006 postal reform legislation USPS is saddled with a roughly $5.6 billion annual obligation to pre-fund retiree health benefits. Last year Congress provided relief and it is unclear whether it will do so again this year.
Postal workers meanwhile continue to maintain a high level of quality service, according to the service’s consumer affairs department.
It said on-time delivery of mail during the past three months was largely steady with 96 percent of overnight single-piece First-Class mail delivered on time, while overall, 85.7 percent of respondents polled recently rated their experience in the top two categories – "very satisfied" or "mostly satisfied" – during the past three months.
