The United States Postal Service announced improved deliveries of First-Class Mail, Marketing Mail and Periodicals since the second quarter as its operations continue to recover from challenges experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the second quarter, delivery performance against existing USPS service targets showed the following improvements:
- A 9.5 percentage point improvement in First-Class Mail deliveries, as 87.6 percent were delivered on-time against the USPS service standard in May. On average, a first-class mailpiece took 2.4 days to be delivered so far this quarter.
- A 5.5 percentage point improvement in delivery of Marketing Mail to 90.6 percent against the USPS service standard in May. On average, a marketing mailpiece took 2.9 days to be delivered so far this quarter.
“While we are encouraged by the progress we have made on service performance so far this year, there is more work to be done to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers for service reliability,” said Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy. “The entire United States Postal Service is fully committed to addressing long-standing challenges head-on as we emerge from the pandemic.”
While mail delivery operations and package processing continue to improve, the Postal Service reported staffing issues, including employee absenteeism, continue to be a challenge as the agency recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. During the month of May, national employee availability was 78 percent.
Aligned with its goal of achieving the 95 percent service performance delivery target, the Postal Service recently announced network enhancements and investments currently underway to prepare for the 2021 holiday peak season. These initiatives include: the procurement of 138 package sorters to meet higher package volume, the leasing of 45 annex facilities within 5 miles of existing facilities to accommodate surges in demand ahead of the 2021 peak holiday season, and the completion of operational mail moves previously paused in 2015 at 18 facilities.
With full implementation, the Postal Service’s 10-year plan is designed to reverse a projected $160 billion in operating losses over the next 10 years. The Plan’s growth and efficiency initiatives, including the proposed pricing changes, together with necessary legislation, should allow the Postal Service to make investments totaling approximately $40 billion over the next 10 years to modernize and improve its infrastructure to become more efficient and service responsive.
In 2020, the Postal Service delivered approximately 129.2 billion pieces of mail and packages to customers located in every state and territory, county, city, town and rural area in the nation.
The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
