The US Postal Services considers closing 3,700 post offices across the the United States, the Washington Post said on Wednesday, adding that it is the largest downsizing in the history of the money-losing agency. The unprofitable stations, branches and main offices face closure starting in January, account for about 11 percent of the Postal Service's retail operations, the newspaper said. In the Washington area, 32 post offices could be shuttered, from those servicing Congress in the US Capitol to ones in Silver Spring and downtown Leesburg, it said. Another 124 elsewhere in Maryland and Virginia are on the list, the post said, adding that the rest are scattered across 47 other states. The Postal Service hopes the streamlining will save $200 million a year. That does not come close to recouping the $8 billion the agency is expected to lose for the second year running as it fights plummeting mail volume. But the Post quoted postal officials as saying they intend to review half of their network of 32,000 post offices for closure in the next decade as they try to slash labor costs. “We've made heroic efforts to take costs out of the organization while continuing to provide services,” Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said at a news conference, comparing his agency's financial struggles to the federal government's effort to stay within its cap on borrowing. “We have employees waiting for customers to come into their lobbies, and they have less than two hours they're working,” he said. About 2,500 of the 3,654 sites targeted for possible closure wA nill be replaced by a clerk in a local store, gas station, library or town hall in a new business model the Postal Service describes as a “village post office”.
