Postal and Shipping Sector: Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources

Sector Overview

The Postal and Shipping Sector is an integral component of the U.S. economy, employing more than 1.8 million people and earning direct revenues of more than $213 billion per year. The Postal and Shipping Sector moves over 720 million messages, products, and financial transactions each day.

Postal and shipping activity is differentiated from general cargo operations by its focus on small- and medium-size packages and by service from millions of senders to nearly 150 million destinations. The sector is highly concentrated, with a handful of providers holding roughly 94 percent of the market share.

Sector-specific assets include:

• over 400 high-volume automated processing facilities;
• over 40 thousand local delivery units;
• many and varied collection, acceptance, and retail operations;
• over 50 thousand mail transport vehicles including vans, trucks, tractor trailers and aircraft;
• and information and communications networks.

Every sector of the economy depends on the service providers in the Postal and Shipping Sector to deliver time-sensitive letters, packages and other shipments. These time-sensitive delivery needs are critical to the  Banking and Finance, Government Facilities, Commercial Facilities and Healthcare and Public Health sectors. Major interdependencies with other sectors include those with the Transportation Systems,  Energy,  Information Technology and Communications sectors.

Read the Postal Sector Snapshot (PDF, 2 pages - 401KB)