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March 20, 2009 in City
Postal Service to cut 75 jobs in Spokane
The U.S. Postal Service will close Spokane’s district office this summer, cutting about 75 positions, a USPS spokesperson said Friday.
As part of cost-squeezing nationwide, Spokane’s closure is one of six district USPS offices shutting down, said spokesperson Teresa Rudkin.
“This affects 75 positions,” said Rudkin. “The actual number of people is slightly less than 75 as some of the jobs are unfilled,” she added.
The district office has been on the sixth floor of the Crescent Building at 707 W. Main. It fills about 24,000 square feet.
Those 75 positions were administrators who managed marketing, customer support, finance and transportation logistics for Eastern Washington and all of Idaho.
Eastern Washington and North Idaho management will shift to the Seattle district, with southern Idaho assigned to Salt Lake, Rudkin said.
The change will have “no impact at all” on mail handling or carrier delivery, Rudkin said.
Nationwide the postal service is offering early retirement to 150,000 workers, cutting management and closing offices, the agency said Friday.
The Postal Service lost $2.8 billion last year and is facing even larger losses this year, despite a rate increase — to 44 cents for first-class mail — scheduled to take effect May 11.
Management staff will be reduced about 15 percent with more than 1,400 processing, supervisor and management posts at 400 facilities being eliminated.
The other district offices closed are in Lake Mary, Fl.; North Reading, Mass.; Manchester, N.H.; Edison, N.J.; and Erie, Pa.
Spokane workers being laid off will have a chance to apply for unfilled jobs within the Spokane and North Idaho area. The USPS has imposed a hiring freeze since last year.
Rudkin noted also that close to two-thirds of the staff and managers at the Spokane district office are eligible for early or full retirement.
Officials said the economic recession contributed to a mail volume decline of 5.2 billion pieces compared to the same period last year. If there is no economic recovery, the Postal Service projects volume for the year will be down by 12 billion to 15 billion pieces of mail.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
City consolidating management of its land in effort to save money 
philipgregory on March 20 at 1:28 p.m.
Fine. We do need ‘more’ postal service, just BETTER postal service.
They’ve already forced people (including elderly and infirm) to walk to end (or middle) of the block to get their mail at the ‘community’ mailbox.
Why not cut back delivery to 3 days a week and start providing real service like the old USPS did when “..through rain, sleet and snow…” was a motto that really meant something. Now, they complain if the have to put their heated vans in reverse.
DocTom on March 20 at 1:48 p.m.
It’s always a sad day when you see folks lose their incomes. When the price of stamps keeps going up and up, then I made the decision to use email, or pay bills online. The final straw was the recent announcement that stamps were increasing AGAIN in May. I totally agree with philipgregory that the service stinks and not what we have enjoyed from the committed postal associates in the past. If we were to cut the big incomes at the top non-productive levels of USPS and begin to instill the commitment that philipgregory discusses, then we can turn this negative to a positive. Too many big bucks at the top and the working associates suffer on the layoffs.
maggiemay on March 23 at 6:39 p.m.
It appears interesting to me that close to two-thirds of the 75 employees are eligible for early or full retirement.
Do you think there might be possible age discrimination happening to the Spokane employees of the USPS?
.