Shippers Won’t Have to Pay USPS Holiday Surcharges This Year
USPS says it won't impose holiday surcharges on shippers during the 2023 holiday season; the move marks a reversal of the past two years since DeJoy became Postmaster General
The United States Postal Service is making a strategic change to its business for the 2023 peak season: not charging shippers any holiday surcharges. While USPS holiday surcharges have impacted shippers since 2021, USPS is looking to cut costs by building up its career workforce and hiring significantly fewer temporary employees to help with holiday package demand. As a result, the savings the Postal Service incurs will eliminate the need to impose surcharges on shippers.
Postmaster General DeJoy Says USPS Doesn’t Need to Impose Holiday Surcharges Due to Greater Efficiencies
In a press release, USPS confirmed that it won’t be imposing holiday surcharges on shippers for the 2023 season. When speaking to reporters, DeJoy said that USPS imposed holiday surcharges since 2021 to offset higher workforce costs that came at the end of the year. These costs were exacerbated at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when USPS faced a combination of staffing shortages and unprecedented package demand, leading to the worst package backlog in the agency’s history.
Regarding the holiday surcharges of recent years, DeJoy said the following:
“Prior to me being here, we never had an incremental charge. We put it in, because in my experience in the commercial business, when you have to do such exponential, extra work, you should, in fact, charge for it—and we did.”
Another notable change to USPS for the upcoming 2023 holiday season is the recently-rolled-out service USPS Ground Advantage, which combined the two previous services First Class Package and Retail/Parcel Select Ground.
USPS is Hiring Significantly Less Temporary Workers than Other Shipping Carriers for the Holiday Season
Per the Postal Service’s press release (linked above), USPS has cut costs by converting 150,000 pre-career employees to full-time career positions since 2021, steadily lowering the need to hire a significant number of temporary workers during the holidays. Since this is the case, USPS is only looking to hire 10,000 seasonal employees across the country to help with this year’s peak demand.
The Postal Service’s announcement came on the same day that Amazon said it planned to hire 250,000 temporary workers (including both warehouse and delivery workers) to help with the increased demand the company anticipates during the holidays.
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