U.S. Postmaster Common Louis DeJoy informed Congress he signed an settlement with Elon Musk’s DOGE authorities reform crew to offer help to the money-losing company as it really works to handle “big problems.”
USPS, an unbiased authorities company with 635,000 workers that misplaced $9.5 billion final yr, has been exempt from DOGE-directed federal worker reductions.
DeJoy informed Congress in a letter seen by Reuters that USPS plans to cut back its workforce by 10,000 staff within the subsequent month via a voluntary early retirement program first introduced in January.
The Submit Workplace has minimize 30,000 jobs since 2021.
DeJoy stated the settlement with DOGE and the Common Companies Administration will permit the federal government reform crew to “assist us in identifying and achieving further efficiencies…. The DOGE team was gracious enough to ask for big problems they can help us with.”
DOGE is working throughout authorities to cancel contracts and shrink companies.
DeJoy cited a lot of points together with administration of retirement property and its staff’ compensation program by different authorities companies, unfunded mandates and burdensome regulatory necessities.
DeJoy has led a dramatic effort to restructure the put up workplace over the past 5 years — together with reducing forecasted losses from $160 billion to $80 billion over a decade– that has used comparable ways to the DOGE crew together with shrinking the workforce and canceling or renegotiating contracts.
He stated the Postal Regulatory Fee “is an unnecessary agency that has inflicted over $50 billion in damage to the Postal Service by administering defective pricing models and decades-old bureaucratic processes.”
Consultant Gerald Connolly, prime Democrat on the committee overseeing USPS, stated DeJoy was permitting DOGE to “infiltrate” the company, suggesting DOGE would “undermine it, privatize it, and then profit off Americans’ loss.”
GSA and DOGE didn’t instantly remark.
Final month, two media shops reported President Donald Trump was getting ready to situation an government order to fireside the Postal Service board of governors.
The White Home denied the plan however Trump stated he was contemplating merging the Postal Service with the U.S. Commerce Division, a transfer Democrats stated would violate federal regulation.
Musk, a billionaire prime adviser to Trump, stated final week he thought USPS ought to be privatized.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has stated the Postal Service may assist shrink the division’s prices by offering staff to conduct the U.S. census and deal with duties carried out by 20,000 Social Safety workers.
The Postal Service is adopting new service requirements that may save the company no less than $36 billion over 10 years.
The Postal Service has misplaced greater than $100 billion since 2007.
Final month, it reported a fourth-quarter revenue of $144 million.
As digital communications have proliferated, the company has been harm by an 80% decline in first-class mail quantity since 1997.
Volumes at the moment are on the lowest stage since 1968.
DeJoy introduced final month he plans to go away after about 5 years on the job.