USPS Launches Hiring Spree In PA Amid Massive Worker Shortages

PENNSYLVANIA — With the holiday season approaching and a massive labor shortage in Pennsylvania and elsewhere lingering, the U.S. Postal Service has announced a hiring spree that they hope will help them fill some 20,000 seasonal openings.

Already, a tight labor market is complicating efforts to hire in the days and weeks before packages start piling up.

A tight labor market is complicating efforts to fill positions before packages start piling up. The Postal Service has an even 100 open jobs in Pennsylvania in a range of positions that include carriers, custodial laborers, and more.

Hiring comes as Pennsylvania stares down a 4.1 percent unemployment rate, the 8th worst in the country.

Under pressure from Congress to carve a path of financial sustainability for the Post Office, officials told a House oversight committee Wednesday that even if the hiring goals are met, the agency will enter the holiday season with fewer workers and less facility space than it had last year at this time.

The number of seasonal positions is less than half of last year’s request for 45,000 temporary jobs, and down from 28,000 positions Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had originally asked to fill for the 2022 holiday season.

Agency and postal union officials told the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s panel on Government Operations that with better training and efficiency measures, postal employees are well positioned to deliver 60 million packages a day even with lower staffing, according to a report from Government Executive, a business news site.

“We never have enough people, but we manage. We move people around, and we use overtime,” United Postmaster and Managers of America president Edmund Carley told lawmakers. “It will be a successful season, I’m sure.”

Space is also an issue. The Postal Service has leased only 25 of the 88 additional annexes it needs for package storage, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general submitted to the committee. That could mean mail will be shifted to other facilities, or stored in temporary tents.

Pennsylvania residents should get cards and packages in the mail well ahead of 2022 USPS holiday deadlines.

The following are the recommended “send-by-dates for expected delivery” before Sunday, Dec. 25, in the lower 48 states:

• Retail Ground: Saturday, Dec. 17
• First-Class Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail: Monday, Dec. 19
• Priority Mail Express: Friday, Dec. 23

The following dates are the recommended last days for shipping holiday gifts from Alaska for delivery by Sunday, Dec. 25:

• Ground: Friday, Dec. 2
• First-Class Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail Express: Wednesday, Dec. 21

The following dates are the recommended last days for shipping holiday gifts from Hawaii for delivery by Sunday, Dec. 25:

• First-Class Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail: Saturday, Dec. 17
• Priority Mail Express: Wednesday, Dec. 21

Shipping deadlines for international mail range from Nov. 29-Dec. 6. The ground shipping deadline for military service members has already passed. First-class and priority mail deadlines are Dec. 9; the deadline for Priority Mail Express Military service is Dec. 16.