Postal Worker Jobs | Mail Carrier Career | Mail Processor Job
Postal Employee Jobs - What is the Job of a Mail Carrier? What do Mail Sorter Jobs Involve?
Post officers are responsible for delivering hundreds of millions of pieces of mail each year, including junk mail, packages, letters, and bills, through rain or shine. The United States Postal Service hires more than 500,000 individuals in order to process, sort, and deliver mail and packages in addition to providing supplies and customer service.
Most postal employees are mail clerks, postal carriers, mail sorters, mail processes, and processing machine operators. Postal clerk jobs involve waiting on customers, while mail sorter jobs involve sorting mail that comes into the post office directly or from mail carriers. Mail carriers are responsible for delivering business and residential mail throughout America.
Postal employees or window clerks are responsible for offering money orders, stamps, mailing envelopes, and stationary throughout the country. Postal clerks will also weigh packages and insure mail, in addition answering questions that customers have about postage rates, PO boxes, and mailing restrictions.
Postal mail sorters and processing machine operators are responsible for dealing with sorting packages and letters into the proper areas, so that they can be shipped across the country. Sorting mail involves unloading postal trucks and loading them using hand pushcarts or forklifts.
Mail carriers, including rural mail carriers, are responsible for delivering mail after it has been sorted to individuals and businesses in cities and rural areas. Most postal workers will work an established mailing route on a regular basis, with some making house deliveries on foot in dense residential areas. Rural mail carriers will often deliver mail to a series of boxes out on a main road.
Mail carrier jobs also involve collecting cash on delivery fees and obtaining receipts for certified or insured mail. If a customer is vacant, the postal carrier will leave them a notice on how they can pick up their package at the local post office or ask for redelivery.
All mail carriers are responsible for answering customers’ questions about postal regulations as well as providing change of address cards and other postal forms.
Working Conditions for Mail Sorter Jobs - How is the Working Environment for Postal Employees Jobs?
The working environment of postal clerks and window clerk jobs usually involves frequent contact with customers and normal working hours. Window postal clerks may also have to sort mail, depending on their level of seniority.
Mail sorting and processing jobs are physically demanding, due to moving heavy sacks of mail and packages around. Processing mail is both boring and tiring, and many individuals will have to work nights and weekends, as post offices process mail around the clock.
Postal carriers will frequently have to work overtime, working in all types of hazardous weather, and may experience dog bites and repetitive motion injuries from constant lifting and bending.
Rural Carrier Education - How to Become a Postal Worker - How to Receive Your Post Office Training
Postal service applicants must take a post office examination, and it can take over a year to be hired after successfully passing the test, as the competition for a postal office job is intense. Post office workers are usually trained on the job by those who are more experience, and some post offices will offer classroom instruction for mail carriers, in such areas as defensive driving and safety driving.
Rural Carrier Training Requirements - How to Become a Mail Carrier
Other mail carrier training qualifications include being at least 18 years old and a U.S. citizen. Mail carrier applicants must be able to pass a written examination that measure speed and accuracy of one’s ability to memorize numbers and mail distribution techniques. Veterans receive additional points on the postal examination. A postal officer determines which applicant should receive a position, mostly based on the testing score of the postal examination.
After being accepted at the post office, an applicant must complete a physical and drug test, and has to be able to lift the mail sacks that way 70 pounds. Mail carriers must have a driver’s license and a clean driving record, in addition to successfully passing a road test.
Post office clerks must be courteous when dealing with the public and answering questions. Postal clerks must have good interpersonal skills with in order to deal with other mail carriers in the public.
The United States Post Office has a good many opportunities in order to advance to fulltime basis, but most workers start out part time, eventually gaining seniority as a vacancy occurs. Seniority is king in the postal system, and the more years that a postal employee has the nicer routes, working schedules, and benefits they will receive.
Mail Sorter Employment - What is the Future of Mail Carrier Jobs?
Over the next decade, post office worker jobs should decline by about 2%. Factors contributing to the decline of the night states postal service to include increased use of the private mailing services such as FedEx and the United Parcel Service, in addition to a decrease demand in the shipment of bulk mail.
Positive factors in postal service employment include the increased use of first class mail in online commerce. Mail sorter and mail processor work should decline the most, due to the increase of technologies such as optical character readers and automated handling equipment.
Mail carrier jobs should grow by about 1%, as an increased population requires the use of more mail carriers. Cluster mailboxes are cutting down on the need for door to door deliveries, and while it was traditionally the role of a mail carrier to sort their own mail, this work is increasingly being done by machines.
Post office jobs are competitive and anyone hoping to enter should try to score as high as possible on the postal examination. Postal jobs low entry requirements and high wages are attractive to most individuals. Postal layoffs rarely occur, but over time hours may be cut and casual workers may be laid off in economically hard times.
Mail Carrier Jobs Pay Scale - How Much Do Mail Processors Earn?
In 2006, post office mail carriers jobs earned a median annual income of $44,350, with postal clerks earning the median income of $44,800. Mail sorting jobs and mail processors careers had a median income of $43,900 over the same time period, and most post office workers enjoyed a great variety of benefits.
The American Postal Workers Union, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association all join together in order to represent United States Postal Workers, ensuring that they obtain top notch medical and health benefits with their postal employment.