USPS eyes early retirement offers for 130,000 employees
The U.S. Postal Service extended early retirement offers to 3,200 headquarters employees Wednesday and said the offer could eventually be extended to as many as 130,000 employees nationwide — nearly 20 percent of the work force.
The latest offer is restricted to headquarters employees at least 50 years old and with at least 20 years of service, or to those with 25 years of service regardless of age.
No financial incentives or bonuses will be paid to employees who decide to retire. In addition, employees under the Civil Service Retirement System who take the offer will have their annuities reduced by 2 percent for every year they are under 55. There is no similar reduction for employees in the Federal Employees Retirement System.
Under the plan, announced yesterday, 3,200 headquarters employees and employees in headquarters-related jobs who meet the minimum age and length-of-service restrictions will be able to retire.
This includes career executives and other managers at the agency’s L’Enfant Plaza headquarters in Washington and at related facilities, including the Engineering and Development Center in Merrifield, Va., and at postal data centers, spokesman Greg Frey said.
A timeline for when those eligible employees must decide and take early retirements hasn’t been set, he said.
The U.S. Postal Service extended early retirement offers to 3,200 headquarters employees Wednesday and said the offer could eventually be extended to as many as 130,000 employees nationwide — nearly 20 percent of the work force.
The latest offer is restricted to headquarters employees at least 50 years old and with at least 20 years of service, or to those with 25 years of service regardless of age.
No financial incentives or bonuses will be paid to employees who decide to retire. In addition, employees under the Civil Service Retirement System who take the offer will have their annuities reduced by 2 percent for every year they are under 55. There is no similar reduction for employees in the Federal Employees Retirement System.
Under the plan, announced yesterday, 3,200 headquarters employees and employees in headquarters-related jobs who meet the minimum age and length-of-service restrictions will be able to retire.
This includes career executives and other managers at the agency’s L’Enfant Plaza headquarters in Washington and at related facilities, including the Engineering and Development Center in Merrifield, Va., and at postal data centers, spokesman Greg Frey said.
A timeline for when those eligible employees must decide and take early retirements hasn’t been set, he said.
Last month, the Postal Service said it was offering early outs to as many as 72,000 mail handlers, clerks, distribution operations supervisors and customer service supervisors. The notifications for those offers are going out now to eligible employees. Eligible employees have until Sept. 30 to accept the offer, which requires them to retire on Dec. 31.
In a Wednesday interview with The Associated Press, Anthony Vegliante, the Postal Service’s vice president for human resources, said as many as 130,000 workers could be eligible for early outs. That number reflects the two early-out offers announced so far and additional early-retirement requests that require approval by the Office of Personnel Management, Frey said. He said he could not say how soon OPM might approve additional offers that would bring the total number to 130,000 or what categories of employees would be eligible.
