Delayed Retirements, Rising Overtime Bedevil USPS Finances

Despite all the talk of restructuring and downsizing at the U.S. Postal Service, its labor costs have hardly budged in the past year. With employees working more overtime and relatively few retiring, the agency’s cost of salary and benefits inched down by barely 1 percent during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2011. So far this (calendar) year, the decline is a paltry 0.2 percent lower than the same time last year. In contrast, USPS projects that its revenues will decrease nearly 3 percent this fiscal year.

One barrier to cost cutting is a slowing attrition rate. In the Postal