Stamped: 12 billion holiday letters and packages

Preparing for peak postal season

You’ve got mail – and the United States Postal Service (USPS) is making billions of special deliveries in the last quarter of the year with a higher-than-usual volume of packages and letters arriving across the U.S.¹ In 2022, the USPS processed nearly 12 billion letters and packages during the holiday season.²

This year, the USPS is speeding forward with $40 billion of operational improvements through its Delivering for America plan.³ The 10-year transformation includes upgrading the network’s delivery vehicles and increasing daily package processing capacity to around 60 million. In the 2023 fiscal year, the USPS saw sales for its shipping and packaging category increase by $324 million.⁴

The USPS and others in the distribution industry are also building up their workforces to help ensure efficiency. USPS is aiming to hire 7,500 seasonal employees, while UPS and Amazon are recruiting 125,000 and 250,000 seasonal associates, respectively.^3,5,6 Temporary and part-time jobs delivering holiday packages may be appealing to the quarter of Americans (and 33% of Gen Z) who planned on getting a second job in 2024 to boost their income, or to the 58% who are open to working post-retirement.

The price of postage

During the entirety of the 20th century, the price of a first-class stamp for 1 ounce of mail increased 17 times; but in just a few decades of the 21st century the cost has gone up by at least that many times already.^7,8 In fact, from January 2021 through January 2024, the rate for a first-class stamp increased five times, with plans to raise costs an additional five times through 2027.^9,10

Ahead of this peak season, the USPS recently announced holiday surcharges on postage, which are now in effect through mid-January of next year: The smallest rate increase per package will be 30 cents for smaller items, while the highest will be $16 for larger packages, calculated by weight.¹

Notes to the North Pole

Each year, the USPS receives millions of letters addressed to Santa Claus from children and their families.¹¹

When the practice first started more than 100 years ago, the notes were set aside.¹² In 1912, Operation Santa officially began, through which postal employees read and responded to the letters. The program opened to the public in the 1940s, allowing charitable groups, businesses, and all people to respond and opt to help fulfill wishes. Since then, the program has gone digital and anyone within the country can now help spread holiday cheer.¹²

While announcing this year’s Operation Santa program, which started on September 16, the USPS also unveiled a new partnership with Toys “R” Us to help simplify the process of adopting a letter and purchasing a gift.¹³ The collaboration will provide adopters with a special website of curated gifts that they can easily purchase. More than half (57%) of Americans shop for holiday presents online, according to the National Retail Federation.¹⁴