4. TFP: ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
Worksharing discounts to mailers impact Postal Service productivity performance. Worksharing incentives have shifted a greater proportion of the workload associated with automation-compatible mail to business mailers. Worksharing discounts provide cost savings for the Postal Service and enhance the productivity of the economy as a whole. Worksharing, however, transfers the Postal Service’s prime opportunities for productivity improvement to our partners, the mailers. In contrast, the BLS measure, multi-factor productivity, does not factor out self-service or worksharing on the part of the customer. Rather, MFP captures the whole of the economy, including productivity that has been transferred between segments.

Cumulative TFP growth for the Postal Service from 1972 through 2002 was 12.7 percent, and the average annual rate was 0.4 percent. MFP growth during this period is estimated to be 22.8 percent, or an average of 0.7 percent annually.