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Click Here to Read the Full Press Release [1]
Tough job news from the US Postal Service.
It is closing down its Chattanooga Remote Encoding Center (REC) at Eastgate.
That means the elimination of more than 500 jobs.
The non-descript building and the workers are falling victim to improved technology.
The REC processes hand written mail from 30 USPS plants nationwide.
UPSP Tennessee District Communications Manager Beth Barnett says, "As technology increases we have less and less need for this type of operation."
Employees key address information from computer images of hand written envelopes.
When the Center was established in 1994 only 2 percent of the nation's hand written mail could be processed electronically...But times have changed.
Barnett says, "What we plan to do is gradually decrease and reassign the work load elsewhere."
USPS is no stranger to the tightening economy, but Barnett says the REC closing is all about efficiency, "This particular closing had nothing to do with the economic situation. It was known on the front end that this was a temporary solution to our ability to automate the mail processing."
Now 95 percent of hand written mail volume is processed electronically, which costs the Postal Service less.
Barnett says the remainder of the workload will be reassigned to 5 other Encoding Centers, "The less we handle the mail the more we can save on our cost per piece."
The Center will close in April of 2009.
Only 145 career postal workers here have the chance to be reassigned to other postal positions.
Barnett says the remaining 391 temporary workers will get help looking for other jobs, "Our goal was to try to notify everyone ahead of time to give them plenty of time to make their decisions and help them plan to find other employment."
Barnett expects the workload shift and the job losses to start after the first of the year.
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| USPS Release.pdf [2] | 17.94 KB |
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