U.S. Postal Service Shrinks

The U.S. Postal Service employed 906,000 employees including 798,000 career employees in 1999, its peak in recent history. As of 2007, that had fallen to 786,000 employees of whom 685,000 were career employees. So, over the past nine years, U.S. Postal Service employment has fallen by 220,000 (about 24% and just 32,000 less than the current total global employment of General Motors in 2008) and by 113,000 career employees (about 14%).

Of course, nearly all of these cuts come from domestic federal government jobs that pay reasonably well, and in the career employee case, at least, come with decent benefits and job security and are largely unionized. Not all of the eliminated jobs have been removed from the economy entirely. Many have been outsourced to commercial mailhouses, which still employ people and are mostly domestic, but are less plum in the salary, benefits and job security offered.