As the Postal Service prepares for the holiday peak season, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently met and heard from employees at facilities in Rockford, IL; Madison, WI; and Milwaukee.
“I am energized by the conversations I have been having here in Rockford and across the country with our Postal Service employees who have been working all year long to prepare for the upcoming holiday season,” DeJoy said.
“We started investing in our equipment, people and facilities for the holiday season earlier than ever and we are ready to deliver. Our customers should feel confident sending their holiday mail and packages through the Postal Service this year.”
Since April, USPS has installed 88 of 112 new package sorting machines across the nation, including facilities in Chicago; Des Moines, IA; Grand Rapids, MN; Minneapolis and Milwaukee.
These new machines — part of a 10-year, $40 billion planned investment established in the Delivering for America plan — will accommodate the higher package volumes expected this holiday season and help expedite sortation and delivery to their local destinations.
Additionally, more than 50 systems capable of sorting large packages are expected to be installed before December. With this new equipment, the Postal Service can sort an additional 4.5 million packages each day.
USPS is also investing in its people and facilities to meet the anticipated delivery demands of peak season.
This includes a national drive to hire an additional 40,000 seasonal employees and the leasing of an additional 7.5 million square feet across more than 40 multiyear annexes that will create more space, resolve bottlenecks and improve the flow of mail and packages to customers.
As part of his Rockford visit, DeJoy swore in the city’s 34th postmaster: Rebecca A. Kruckenberg, an employee with more than two decades of experience.
“It’s an honor to be in Rockford to meet our employees in person and to personally swear in Postmaster Kruckenberg,” DeJoy said.
