Record mail volume and worker shortage lead to USPS delays
Jeremy M. Lazarus | 12/24/2020, 6 p.m.
The U.S. Postal Service is struggling to deliver gifts, medications and other mail in a timely fashion.
Several clerks and retired members of the Postal Service, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, have said that deliveries in the Greater Richmond area are backlogged at the mail processing center in Sandston.
“I paid for priority delivery of a package my mother needs in New York, and it still had not arrived a week later, though it should take no more than three days,” said one retiree. “I found out it had yet to be processed. There’s a lot of mail like that, I was told.”
USPS spokeswoman Freda Sauter confirmed that the mail is moving slower and attributed it to the impact of the pandemic on the workforce as large amounts of holiday mail has poured in.
She noted the Postal Service has logged a record volume of letters and packages needing to be moved at the same time the Postal Service is experiencing a “temporary employee shortage due to the COVID-19 surge.”
Ms. Sauter also noted that the USPS is facing transportation constraints as airlines reduce flights that carry mail and trucking firms face cutbacks due to the impact of the virus on the supply chain in numerous industries.
