USPS hosting hiring event amid worker shortage

(FOX 9) - Amid a national and local shortage of employees, the United States Postal Service (USPS) will hold a hiring event in St. Paul.

The USPS is currently seeking city carriers, rural carriers and associates, tractor trailer operators and mail handlers. The event will be held on July 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the St. Paul PSA Annex.

In June Minnesota’s unemployment rate dropped to 2%, down from the previous record of 2.2% in April, according to state Department of Employment and Economic Development data. Minnesota's recordkeeping goes back to 1976. 

Hiring slowed in May as the state added just 6,600 jobs, down from 11,700 jobs added a month earlier. Employers are dealing with one of the country's tightest labor markets, 40-year-high inflation, and rising interest rates that are stoking fears of a recession.

"Everybody who’s watching the economy is holding their breath a little bit at this moment," Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove told reporters on a conference call at the time. "I do not hear from employers right now that they are at all slowing down their need for workers. I’m hearing the opposite – that they want our help to find more."

FOX 9 also reported about a Prior Lake neighborhood that was left without mail delivery for nearly a week last month due to a lack of available mail carriers.