Pasadena Post Office Sees 10 to 14 percent Increase in Parcels Over Previous Year During This Holiday Season

This week, post offices throughout the Pasadena area are opening 15 to 30 minutes early to accommodate the holiday rush.

It is the U.S. Postal Service’s busiest week of the year for sending and receiving packages, according to the Pasadena Postmaster. 

Postal employees will also be working well into the night, even with new package sorting machines installed and additional staff being added to the workforce on a seasonal basis.

“We are not turning away any customers that come a little late,” Pasadena Postmaster Noel Hodges said. “One of our most successful processes last year, which we are continuing this year, is pushing to get 70 percent of Pasadena’s packages delivered between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. This not only helps ensure your packages are delivered in the daylight and under your tree sooner, but it also means our carriers aren’t out as late during our peak season.”

This is the last week to get holiday gifts and greetings in the mail by the recommended deadlines. 

At all post office locations, customer traffic has been steadily increasing since Dec. 5, although Pasadena USPS staff have been dealing with additional loads of packages since late November.

“Our busy season started right after Thanksgiving,” Hodges said. “We saw a spike in packages as early as November 28, 2022.”

He added that post offices in Pasadena have seen about a 10- to 14-percent increase in parcels over previous years. 

Nationwide, the USPS has been preparing for the holiday peak – the time between Black Friday and New Year’s Day – since January.

Over 41,000 part-time workers have been converted full-time since the start of the year. An additional 20,000 seasonal employees were targeted in October when a national hiring drive began.

“An extra 10.5 million square feet of space has been added to the network to process packages, 23 temporary peak annexes have been opened in addition to the 48 parcel support annexes opened for peak 2021, and we’ve installed 137 new package sorting machines,” USPS said in a statement last week. 

The statement added Sunday delivery has also been expanded in select locations that experience high package volumes. Mail carriers will also deliver Priority Mail Express packages for an additional fee on Christmas Day in select locations.

For Pasadena, Hodges said it would lighten the load on postal workers if customers could mail their packages as early as possible so employees wouldn’t need to be working late.

“The safety of our employees and your parcels are our number one priority,” he said.

They’re also committed to delivering every package that arrives on Christmas Eve.