7 ms·

This is going to get worse, and for other professions not generally getting news coverage. A close relative of mine for the USPS. Mail volume has dropped drama

This is going to get worse, and for other professions not generally getting news coverage. A close relative of mine for the USPS. Mail volume has dropped dramatically, yet they are desperate for employees to work overtime. It's because so many are using their vacation/sick time or otherwise not coming in, and I don't blame them. Some are going through cancer treatment, have diabetes, or other complications which put them at risk. Some in the distribution center have contracted COVID-19, and at least one (but maybe more) has already died. There are a lot of people endangering their life coming in to work, and not just grocery stores and hospitals.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> Mail volume has dropped dramatically, yet they are desperate for employees to work overtime. I thought mail volume was dramatically up because everyone’s ordering online?
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Anecdotally, I've seen much less junk mail, which happens to be a significant portion of the mail delivered to our house.
  - Macha 7y ago
    Does that get sent by the mail system? At least here it's mostly minimum wage folks employed by marketing companies (not the postal service) going door to door to put leaflets in. The postal service might add a flyer to your actual mail delivery, but only if they're delivering to your address anyway.
    - WillPostForFood 7y ago
      A lot goes through the mail system. The Data and Marketing Association says American businesses sent 149 billion pieces of direct mail and nearly 10 billion catalogues in 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/how-to-stop-junk-mail-and-save-trees--and-your-sanity/2018/02/12/6000e4c4-05d9-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/how-to-stop-ju... This is just a counter-anecdote, but for every flyer on the door I get (once or twice a week), I get scores of pieces of junk mail. I assume you don't own a home, because that alone is good for 10 a week.
    - brian-armstrong 7y ago
      Yes, most of it is delivered by USPS https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      99% of my junk mail is sent via USPS. Junk mail actually gets a better rate than regular 1st class mail. It's something like 20 cents for marketing mail vs 50 cents for a piece of regular mail. In exchange I think the marketer has to do some presorting of their own, and they lose the ability to do things like forwarding or return to sender. USPS actually has a monopoly on mailboxes. It's illegal for FedEx or anyone else to put a letter/package in your mailbox, although I don't know how much that's enforced.
    - quesera 7y ago
      It is not legal, in the US, for anyone except the USPS to put anything into your mailbox.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        That's crazy. You can't hand-post your neighbours invitations to a party, for example?
        mjcl 7y ago
        Not legally, though it sounds like if you put postage on it, it would be: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725
      - jolmg 7y ago
        What about FedEx, UPS, and DHL?
        quesera 7y ago
        USPS only.
    - internalthief 7y ago
      I live in an apartment complex, and my mailbox doesn't have a slot in it. All of the junk mail I've received has come via the USPS, however since this all started happening I have received almost none. The drop-off of junk mail delivery has been both welcome, and a sign of troubles for the USPS.
    - Macha 7y ago
      To clarify, "here" is Ireland, not the US. The comments indicate in the US, USPS has a much greater share of spam delivery. (too late to edit the original post)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Most of my Amazon packages now come via Amazon's own logistics system at this point.
  - deusexepsilon 7y ago
    I was asked to keep a book of a plane. I told the book was Amazon's response, and I said I'd wait up to an hour to order a package. I bought it, but because Amazon itself is their system — a website that reads through Amazon every time I got a package — I went to the nearest store if for certain reasons. The bag's shipping time was about 30 minutes. It's the only thing I can get off of my Kindle copy.
- ilamont 7y ago
  I talked to the franchise owner of a UPS store outside of Boston, and he reported a 50% dropoff in business, as well as a shift in the types of orders for people working from home as well as people shipping things like toilet paper. The big issue for the post office is the amount commercial mail has fallen off a cliff and will likely continue to drop. Anecdotally, we have seen very little junk mail in the past month other than grocery fliers. I predict serial publications like regional magazines will fail, too -- running a magazine was already tough, but now it's even worse now that many advertisers have gone out of business or are cutting back on marketing costs. If they don't have enough subscribers to keep the presses running, it's game over.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    Interesting yet in retrospect not too surprising given that even Amazon is bottlenecking - even with increased demand in general that they could have issues keeping demand up.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tomjen3 7y ago
  I have started to order for at-home delivery, including groceries. That is anec-data but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also the case for a lot of other people. Also I know that ads of all kinds have dropped of a cliff. I am in Denmark, but I imagine that people are people everywhere.
detaro 7y ago
Mail volume in the US is down? Interesting, here in Germany it's reported as being at christmas-time levels.
- cpr 7y ago
  Maybe Germans have a good residual letter-writing culture which has otherwise been wiped out by electronic communications, at least in the US. Would be interested to know if that's the case.
  - lsniddy 7y ago
    I doubt mail volume is driven by hand written letters at any point.
- jshevek 7y ago
  USPS volume is said to be down in the US, not total residential mail & shipping volume.
  - detaro 7y ago
    Ah of course, letters vs parcels etc.
    - jshevek 7y ago
      Yes, also USPS is only one of several carriers here. Each has a slightly different market. Decrease in one could occur simultaneous with increase of another.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Most of my mail is advertisement. Maybe a lot of the advertisers are closed so they can send less mail.
swdunlop 7y ago
This is also hitting meat processors very hard. Fabrication (the processing of slaughter to produce cuts of meat ready to ship) is human labor intensive and must be done in refrigerated spaces, so the work is elbow to elbow in many places because space is at a premium.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> This is going to get worse, and for other professions not generally getting news coverage. Flight attendants. Airline baggage handlers. Hotel desk clerks. Hotel maintenance workers. Bus drivers. For that matter, truck drivers. I'm sure there are others. Other than grocery store workers, truck drivers might be the one that scares me the most. If the trucks stop, this is going to get really ugly.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  Meat packing has already stopped. Feel free to get scared. https://time.com/5819878/smithfield-pork-plant-closes-coronavirus/ https://time.com/5819878/smithfield-pork-plant-closes-corona...
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Some meatpacking has stopped. How much, though?
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      The one Smithfield facility mentioned in that article represents 4-5% of US production. The governor has asked it to close for 14 days. That's not the only meat packing/food supply chain breakdown. Here's another article mentioning a major Tyson meat processing plant shutdown. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/07/828873225/meat-processing-plants-suspend-operations-after-workers-fall-ill https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
      - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
        So we're down maybe 10 or 20% of US meatpacking capacity? That's... not good. (Depends on how much spare capacity there is in the system, of course.) (The 10-20% is a guess, based on one large plant and some other plants, without hard data. If anyone has real data, step right up.) I was in Richmond, Virginia 10 days ago, and people were saying there was no meat in grocery stores, so they went to Texas Roadhouse in order to be able to eat non-vegitarian, because Texas Roadhouse still had steaks.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

chrisseaton 7y ago

> Mail volume has dropped dramatically, yet they are desperate for employees to work overtime. I thought mail volume was dramatically up because everyone’s ordering online?

saagarjha 7y ago
Anecdotally, I've seen much less junk mail, which happens to be a significant portion of the mail delivered to our house.
- Macha 7y ago
  Does that get sent by the mail system? At least here it's mostly minimum wage folks employed by marketing companies (not the postal service) going door to door to put leaflets in. The postal service might add a flyer to your actual mail delivery, but only if they're delivering to your address anyway.
  - WillPostForFood 7y ago
    A lot goes through the mail system. The Data and Marketing Association says American businesses sent 149 billion pieces of direct mail and nearly 10 billion catalogues in 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/how-to-stop-junk-mail-and-save-trees--and-your-sanity/2018/02/12/6000e4c4-05d9-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/how-to-stop-ju... This is just a counter-anecdote, but for every flyer on the door I get (once or twice a week), I get scores of pieces of junk mail. I assume you don't own a home, because that alone is good for 10 a week.
  - brian-armstrong 7y ago
    Yes, most of it is delivered by USPS https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    99% of my junk mail is sent via USPS. Junk mail actually gets a better rate than regular 1st class mail. It's something like 20 cents for marketing mail vs 50 cents for a piece of regular mail. In exchange I think the marketer has to do some presorting of their own, and they lose the ability to do things like forwarding or return to sender. USPS actually has a monopoly on mailboxes. It's illegal for FedEx or anyone else to put a letter/package in your mailbox, although I don't know how much that's enforced.
  - quesera 7y ago
    It is not legal, in the US, for anyone except the USPS to put anything into your mailbox.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      That's crazy. You can't hand-post your neighbours invitations to a party, for example?
      - mjcl 7y ago
        Not legally, though it sounds like if you put postage on it, it would be: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725
    - jolmg 7y ago
      What about FedEx, UPS, and DHL?
      - quesera 7y ago
        USPS only.
  - internalthief 7y ago
    I live in an apartment complex, and my mailbox doesn't have a slot in it. All of the junk mail I've received has come via the USPS, however since this all started happening I have received almost none. The drop-off of junk mail delivery has been both welcome, and a sign of troubles for the USPS.
  - Macha 7y ago
    To clarify, "here" is Ireland, not the US. The comments indicate in the US, USPS has a much greater share of spam delivery. (too late to edit the original post)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 7y ago
Most of my Amazon packages now come via Amazon's own logistics system at this point.
- deusexepsilon 7y ago
  I was asked to keep a book of a plane. I told the book was Amazon's response, and I said I'd wait up to an hour to order a package. I bought it, but because Amazon itself is their system — a website that reads through Amazon every time I got a package — I went to the nearest store if for certain reasons. The bag's shipping time was about 30 minutes. It's the only thing I can get off of my Kindle copy.
ilamont 7y ago
I talked to the franchise owner of a UPS store outside of Boston, and he reported a 50% dropoff in business, as well as a shift in the types of orders for people working from home as well as people shipping things like toilet paper. The big issue for the post office is the amount commercial mail has fallen off a cliff and will likely continue to drop. Anecdotally, we have seen very little junk mail in the past month other than grocery fliers. I predict serial publications like regional magazines will fail, too -- running a magazine was already tough, but now it's even worse now that many advertisers have gone out of business or are cutting back on marketing costs. If they don't have enough subscribers to keep the presses running, it's game over.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Interesting yet in retrospect not too surprising given that even Amazon is bottlenecking - even with increased demand in general that they could have issues keeping demand up.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tomjen3 7y ago
I have started to order for at-home delivery, including groceries. That is anec-data but I wouldn't be surprised if it is also the case for a lot of other people. Also I know that ads of all kinds have dropped of a cliff. I am in Denmark, but I imagine that people are people everywhere.

detaro 7y ago

Mail volume in the US is down? Interesting, here in Germany it's reported as being at christmas-time levels.

cpr 7y ago
Maybe Germans have a good residual letter-writing culture which has otherwise been wiped out by electronic communications, at least in the US. Would be interested to know if that's the case.
- lsniddy 7y ago
  I doubt mail volume is driven by hand written letters at any point.
jshevek 7y ago
USPS volume is said to be down in the US, not total residential mail & shipping volume.
- detaro 7y ago
  Ah of course, letters vs parcels etc.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    Yes, also USPS is only one of several carriers here. Each has a slightly different market. Decrease in one could occur simultaneous with increase of another.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Most of my mail is advertisement. Maybe a lot of the advertisers are closed so they can send less mail.

swdunlop 7y ago

This is also hitting meat processors very hard. Fabrication (the processing of slaughter to produce cuts of meat ready to ship) is human labor intensive and must be done in refrigerated spaces, so the work is elbow to elbow in many places because space is at a premium.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

> This is going to get worse, and for other professions not generally getting news coverage. Flight attendants. Airline baggage handlers. Hotel desk clerks. Hotel maintenance workers. Bus drivers. For that matter, truck drivers. I'm sure there are others. Other than grocery store workers, truck drivers might be the one that scares me the most. If the trucks stop, this is going to get really ugly.

Consultant32452 7y ago
Meat packing has already stopped. Feel free to get scared. https://time.com/5819878/smithfield-pork-plant-closes-coronavirus/ https://time.com/5819878/smithfield-pork-plant-closes-corona...
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Some meatpacking has stopped. How much, though?
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    The one Smithfield facility mentioned in that article represents 4-5% of US production. The governor has asked it to close for 14 days. That's not the only meat packing/food supply chain breakdown. Here's another article mentioning a major Tyson meat processing plant shutdown. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/07/828873225/meat-processing-plants-suspend-operations-after-workers-fall-ill https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      So we're down maybe 10 or 20% of US meatpacking capacity? That's... not good. (Depends on how much spare capacity there is in the system, of course.) (The 10-20% is a guess, based on one large plant and some other plants, without hard data. If anyone has real data, step right up.) I was in Richmond, Virginia 10 days ago, and people were saying there was no meat in grocery stores, so they went to Texas Roadhouse in order to be able to eat non-vegitarian, because Texas Roadhouse still had steaks.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]