USPS mail carrier shortage leading to late-night deliveries in Northern California

Through the light of his headlamp, Bill David, a 29-year-veteran mail carrier for the United States Postal Service, sorted through mail in a Santa Rosa apartment complex late Saturday night.

USPS mail carrier Vanessa Moran said on her Petaluma route Thursday that she works about 20 hours of overtime a week.

If you live in the Bay Area, you might have noticed these mail carriers showing up later than usual, even as late as 9 or 10 p.m.

Many carriers are, in fact, working hours past their regular eight-hour shifts to get mail out on time, USPS officials confirmed Wednesday.

During the holiday season, delivery chaos, overtime and delays are typical as the volume of packages increases as a result of blowout sales and a flurry of gift exchanges. However, it is unusual for this time of year when Black Friday is more than a month away.

The current after-hours deliveries can be attributed to a combination of factors, said Justin Hastings, a spokesperson for USPS in Northern California.

The primary reason is a worker shortage impacting the Bay Area and an increase in parcels due to earlier-than-usual holiday sales, he said.

Mail carriers each typically have one specific route and work an eight-hour shift. New carriers earn between $16 to $35 an hour in Santa Rosa, according to job listings by USPS.

But when a carrier gets sick, takes a vacation, quits, is promoted or retires, carriers with nearby routes will each assume a section of the vacant route until that position is filled.

In Santa Rosa, there are approximately 150 mail carrier routes. At least 30 are vacant or soon to be vacant, according to Hastings.

Handling extra route duties on top of their own means that they may need to work overtime to finish by the end of the day. Otherwise they would just have to make their rounds the next day and work even later, Hastings said.

Overtime pay for the carriers is time-and-a-half for the first two hours and double past two hours, he said.

Beyond a nationwide trend in low employment due to pandemic fallout, the post office has had to deal with additional work realities.

On one hand, “the post office is an aging workforce,” Hastings said. About a quarter of workforce is eligible for retirement in the next five years, he said. “So we have a constant attrition just due to that.”

In the Bay Area, where the cost of living is one of the highest in the country, working a somewhat lower-paid mail carrier job is not appealing for many.

“Things are getting more expensive, so it's hard to keep up with that,” Hastings said.

An increase in package deliveries has not helped relieve the long hours, Hastings said. For every package, the mail carrier has to leave their vehicle, go to each doorstep, scan the package and ring the doorbell, which is time consuming.

Early Black Friday sales have significantly increased the number of parcels, Hastings said. For example, Oct. 11 and 12, Amazon Prime had an early holiday sale. About two days later, USPS saw a huge increase in the number of packages to be delivered and employees had to work extra late, he said.

“Mail in general is not what keeps us out at night, if that makes sense,” he said. “Every address is getting stopped at every day anyway, whether that address gets one piece of mail or 10 each day.”

Carrie McFarland, who lives in Santa Rosa’s Burbank Gardens neighborhood, said lately she’s seen mail be delivered between 9 and 10 p.m. On occasion she’s even seen two postal carriers out at night when there would normally be just one. She was told the second one was there to help out.

“Although it doesn’t affect me personally (I usually only get junk mail), I am concerned for our mail carriers’ safety and well-being,” she said.

“I work in a hospital so I deeply understand the feeling of being short staffed and having to work different shifts, double shifts, and late shifts,” McFarland said. ”It’s hard and stressful and affects the workers’ lives deeply. I really hope they get good compensation for the extra workload they have to endure.”

In recent months, the USPS has made a push to hire as many long-term employees as they can, Hastings said.

They’re no longer focusing on hiring seasonal part-time workers, he said. Instead they are hiring full-time with full benefits including medical, retirement, pension, paid days off and holidays, even if you don’t have experience, he said.

On Oct. 4, the USPS held a career fair in Santa Rosa. “Turnout was not that great, honestly,” Hastings said.

“The post office is really a long-term employer,” he added. “You know, it's not like a short-term ‘I'm going to make a million dollars tomorrow,’ kind-of-job. This is a job that’s slow and steady, and you build up your wealth over 20 years of being in the company.”

“And sometimes it's hard to pitch that right away when so many people are in such financial trouble,” Hastings said. “Everyone (is having) hiring issues right now … There's fewer people out there accepting these jobs.”

But that being said, there’s other draws to the job, he said. It’s stable and in a large office such as Santa Rosa, there’s immediate comradeship. “You’ve instantly got like 80 friends.”

“It’s a very difficult job,” Hastings said. “It’s not built for everybody, but it is a rewarding job.”

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8511 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.