Oct. 8, 2021

USPS Ends Fourth Quarter with Strongest Service Performance Across All Mail Categories

  • Holiday peak season preparations include installing high-speed package processing equipment across USPS network; 75 of 112 new package sorting machines installed to date
  • Improved service and network performance are elements of the agency’s 10-Year Delivering for America plan

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Postal Service reported service delivery performance scores through the end of fiscal fourth quarter showing the strongest quarterly performance of the year for all First-Class, Marketing and Periodical mail categories.

Quarter-to-date service performance data for July 1 through Sept. 30 included:

  • First-Class Mail: Delivered 88.0 percent of First-Class Mail on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 0.6 percentage points from the third quarter.
  • Marketing Mail: Delivered 92.6 percent of Marketing Mail on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 1.5 percentage points from the third quarter.
  • Periodicals: Delivered 82.1 percent of Periodicals on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of 2.8 percentage points from the third quarter.

Reported fourth quarter scores are preliminary. Final scores will be published towards the end of October.

Delivering for America, the Postal Service’s 10-year plan for financial sustainability and service excellence, seeks to meet or exceed its goal of 95 percent on time service performance for all mail and shipping product delivery based on standards as all elements of the plan are implemented.

Service performance is defined by the Postal Service from the acceptance of a mail piece into our system through delivery, measured against published service standards.

The Postal Service continued preparations for the higher delivery demands of the 2021 holiday peak season this week. Ongoing efforts have included a national drive to hire delivery and plant personnel that is expected to result in an additional 40,000 seasonal hires by year-end, the leasing of 7.5 million square feet of additional space across more than 40 multiyear annexes where we are experiencing year-round space constraints due to parcel growth, and the installation of new processing equipment to accommodate higher volumes reflecting customers’ delivery needs. Since April, the Postal Service has installed 75 of 112 new package sorting machines, reflecting the Delivering for America plan’s $40 billion of planned investment over ten years. Additionally, more than 50 package systems capable of sorting large packages are expected to be deployed prior to December. 4.5 million additional packages can be sorted each day utilizing newly deployed package sortation equipment.

Recent machine installations have occurred in Shreveport (LA), Sacramento (CA), Atlanta (GA), North Bay (CA), Philadelphia (PA), Scranton (PA), Seminole (FL), Las Vegas (NV), Cincinnati (OH), Richmond (VA), Dallas (TX), Little Rock (AR), Pittsburgh (PA), Syracuse (NY), Ybor City (FL), Kansas City (MO), Harrisburg (PA), and Santa Barbara (CA).

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

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