Postal Service offers $15,000 buyouts to cut costs

The Postal Service is offering $15,000 buyouts to employees in an effort to cut costs at a time when the post office is being buffeted by the recession and the popularity of e-mail and electronic bill payment.

Up to 30,000 employees could take the offer at a total cost of about $450 million, the agency said Tuesday. The post office said it could save as much as $500 million in the next two years.

The agency said it reached an agreement on the buyout offer with the American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

The offer is open to those eligible for retirement and early retirement. It also includes employees in select positions, such as retail clerks, distributors and mail handlers who are willing to resign voluntarily.

Letter carriers, who are in different unions, weren't offered the buyouts because the number of addresses the post office must service is growing, Postal Service spokeswoman Yvonne Yoerger said. "That's not an area where we need reduction," she said.

The workers have to decide by Sept. 25.

Postal Service Reducing Workforce, Offices as Mail Volume Falls

The U.S. Postal Service will offer early retirement to about 150,000 workers and eliminate more than 3,000 jobs as the volume of mail declines.

Stamped mail is down to 1964 levels, officials said, contributing to a deficit that reached $2.8 billion in 2008 and is likely to be larger this year.

About 150,000 of the service’s 646,000 workers will be offered early retirement. The agency also is closing six district offices that together have “a little over 500” positions.

Postmaster General John Potter in January told Congress that the Postal Service has been harmed be a “steady erosion” of profitable first-class mail. On Feb. 4 the service reported a first-quarter loss of $384 million on the eighth consecutive quarter of lower mail volume.

Beginning May 11, the price of a first-class stamp is to rise to 44 cents from 42 cents, the Postal Service said Feb 10.