The United States Post Office announced yesterday that they would be laying off 1,400 workers in a massive cost-cutting move that will affect roughly 1/10 of one percent of the 785,929 people employed by the notoriously sleekly efficient government agency.

To put that in perspective, that’s less than two out of every 1000 postal workers. If you’ve ever visited 200 different post offices in one day, you might have bumped into the one person likely to get fired. It will be absolutely amazing if the Post Office can continue to function with this kind of decimation.

The Post Office also announced it will be offering an early retirement option to 150,000 employees in an effort to trim costs. Most experts don’t anticipate a big response to the offer due to the fact the the majority of postal workers will be unable to distinguish between early retirement and continuing to work every day at the post office.

In a related story, the 100% taxpayer-owned USPS increased the total compensation of the Postmaster General last year to over $850,00. The raise included an $80,000 increase in salary and $135,000 in bonus compensation as well as increased retirement benefits and other perks such as being able to cut in line at any post office in the country.

The Post Office lost over $2.8 billion last year. No word yet from the Obama Administration on whether the Postmaster General’s bonus will be subject to the new 90% “AIG tax.”

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“Wait, … what? I thought this was a retirement village…”

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Image: Greg Palmer on Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

U.S. Postal Service To Cut 1,400 Jobs