Postal Service Begins FY24 First Quarter with Consistent Delivery Performance

Import growth is expected to moderate during the first half of 2022 giving the nation’s congested container ports a much-needed break. Imports at the nation’s ports are expected to grow modestly during the first half of 2022, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hacker Associates. But continued high volumes will keep up the pressure that built as the economy bounced back from the pandemic last year. “We’re not going to see the dramatic growth in imports we saw this time last year, but the fact that volumes aren’t falling is a clear sign of continued consumer demand,” said Jonathan Gold, NRF VP for supply chain and customs policy. Congestion remains on both coasts. The Port of Los Angeles alone has around 40 ships waiting to dock, according to Ben Hackette, founder, Hackett Associates.

Unit sales of print books rose 11.6% last week over the week ended May 30, 2020, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan and through the first five months of 2021, sales were up 22.4% over the comparable period in 2020. The adult fiction category had another big week, with sales up 25.8% over the week ended May 30, 2020. Legacy by Nora Roberts was the top-selling title in the category, selling nearly 33,000 copies in its first week on sale. Other new books that cracked the top 10 adult fiction bestseller list were Christine Feehan’s Shadow Storm, which sold more than 18,000 copies, and The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler, which sold over 14,000 copies. Through May 29, print unit sales were up 32.4% over the first five months of 2020.

"As our CFO Joe Corbett will explain later in our financial presentation, the Postal Service finished the fiscal year 2023 with a $6.5 billion dollar net loss. When looking back to our DFA projections published in March of 2021, we forecasted that we would break even this year. Our efforts to grow revenue and reduce labor and transportation costs were simply not enough to overcome our costs to stabilize our organization, the historical inflationary environment we encountered, and our inability to obtain the CSRS reform we sought, none of which were accounted for in our forecasts. While we are not happy with this result, we cannot lose sight of the downward trajectory the Postal Service faced in the fall of 2020 after years of neglect and willful indifference by its stakeholders and custodians prior, and of the substantial progress we have made in correcting our condition and our trajectory."