USPS Office of Inspector General

According to a recent estimate from the American Trucking Associations, there was a shortage of 80,000 truck drivers in 2021. The pandemic worsened an already existing shortage, impacting a number of industries, from retail to manufacturing . . . to mail.

Truck drivers are an essential part of the Postal Service’s transportation network. The Postal Service relies on over 9,000 USPS-employed drivers and thousands of contractors to move millions of mailpieces each day across the nation’s highways, between processing facilities, as well as to and from post offices.

Have you ever been working on a project and come across something that you realize needs immediate attention? That happens to us occasionally, usually during an audit, and it can prompt us to issue a Management Alert right away.

Throughout the year we completed a series of audits on mail operations and delayed mail at eight postal processing facilities across the country. As we conducted our work, we began to see a consistent story.  So we thought it would be useful to publish a capping report summarizing our results.