The periodic reports posted on the Postal Rate Commission web site may not be everyone’s idea of a fun read, but they’re full of interesting numbers when you poke around in them. Today brings a sheaf of payroll reports- itemizing in mind-numbing detail (1,408 pages to be exact) what the USPS has paid out to its employees in the first 16 weeks of the fiscal year. If you’re thinking that maybe you’ll skip reading the whole thing just now, here are some of the interesting numbers:

• A billion dollars a week: the average postal payroll so far this year, totalling salaries and benefits for all employees.
• $2.3 Billion: the amount spent so far on retirement funding, including the employer contribution to CSRS and FERS pensions, Social Security, Medicare and Thrift Savings.
• $1.4 Billion: that’s how much has been paid out so far on health benefits. (That’s more than has been spent so far on the hourly wages of Mail Handlers or Rural Letter Carriers.)
• $1.5 Billion: total cost of overtime, or just under $100 million a week. The average overtime rate is $32.96 an hour.
• 13%: the average overtime percentage (OT/total hours) for bargaining unit employees. The rate varies widely by employee type- for clerks it’s 13%, for city carriers 15%, for mailhandlers 19%, while rural carriers (paid on an evaluated system) get less than 3% overtime.
• $13.67/hour: the average hourly wage paid to casual or temporary employees, including Postmaster and Rural Carrier reliefs.
• $405 million: the amount paid out in sick leave for the first 16 weeks. The total sick leave rate was just under 4%. Bargaining unit sick leave was 4.4%. Management employees nationwide had a sick leave rate of 3.3%, but the Headquarters non-bargaining sick leave rate was 4.5%.

Source: National Payroll Hours Summary Report for Pay Period 02 FY 2006 (That’s the pay period ending January 20, 2006- figures cited are fiscal year to date.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 9:46 pm and is filed under payroll, postal finances. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.