Critical Info About Jobs With The USPS

By Steve Oxseo

If you are looking for a job, you might consider the United States Postal Service (USPS). After Walmart, it has the second highest number of employees in the United States. It offers many different kinds of work with reasonable pay and a good set of benefits. Following is a brief survey of USPS careers and Postal Service work in general.

The mail carrier embodies most people's vision of a Postal Service employee. Formerly referred to as mailmen, they perform the final delivery of mail. It is up to them to convey it to the address of the recipient. Some carriers walk the route, some drive, and some do a mixture. It all depends on the population density of the route. The carrier job is entry level, beyond the basics, the main requirement is to be physically able to cover the route.

When you buy stamps at a Post Office, the person who sells them to you is probably a mail clerk. Besides selling stamps, clerks sell other services and products such as envelopes. They are customer service to a large number of Post Office customers. Mail clerk is another entry level position, but there are several sales and management career paths that begin there.

Mail handlers and processors shepherd the mail through all of the intermediate steps from collection up until it is turned over to the carrier for final delivery. Some of these are entry level jobs with career paths leading into more technical positions or into management.

There is a wide range of more senior engineering, sales, and management jobs available at some locations. Engineers might be responsible for working with the vendors that provide mail sorting equipment. Senior sales people work on customized business agreements with very large mailers.

With the National Center for Employee Development, the Postal Service provides employee training on a vast number of subjects. Targeted management training programs help managers with training that matches their needs at the moment. Training becomes increasingly important as the work of the Postal Service becomes more complex.

The federal retirement program is available to Postal Service employees, as is the Thrift Savings Program that is similar to a 401K plan. Among other benefits, they can enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Free Life Insurance is given to them, and they can choose to pay for more. They can accrue as much vacation as 26 days per year and sick leave at 13 days per year.

It is good to remember that paper mail is a declining business in the United States. Email and the world wide web continue to replace paper mail for a lot of communications and business functions. The Postal Service staff is smaller than it was a few years ago. There are still some job openings, and attrition takes care of quite a bit of the staff reduction. There is no reason to not pursue one of the many USPS careers, but is should be approached with a bit of caution.

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