Postal Service to shift some jobs from Savannah to North Charleston

Consolidation plans announced Thursday by the Postal Service will shift mail-processing jobs in the Savannah area to North Charleston.

The Savannah processing and distribution facility will be closed, and its workload transferred to the Charleston Processing and Distribution Plant on Cross County Road, said Harry Spratlin, district spokesman for the Postal Service.

He said current employees of the Savannah facility will be given the opportunity to relocate to the Charleston area, where they might continue their mail-processing duties or take other available postal jobs. But some job openings likely will be created here.

Spratlin said the Savannah and North Charleston processing plants are similar in size, but he does not know what the number of job shifts or the economic impact might be. Physical expansion of the North Charleston facility probably won’t be necessary, as the increased mail volume can probably be handled by extra shift work, he said.

The closing of the Savannah plant is part of a nationwide Modified Network Consolidation Plan, involving 461 mail processing locations, aimed at cutting Postal Service expenses by $1.2 billion. Consolidating operations will begin this summer. The first phase involves 140 consolidations through February 2013, and a second round of 89 consolidations will begin in February 2014, Spratlin said.

The list of 140 mail processing locations to be consolidated by February can be viewed at http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-future-network/welcome.htm.