by Bill Kotowski

Each year in November the U.S. Postal Service hires thousands of seasonal workers to meet the holiday demand, but this year may be a little different.

Monday, the postal service reported a $3.8 billion loss during the 2009 fiscal year despite efforts to cut spending. That means they may be forced to cut more services.

Post Master General John Potter has asked congress to reduce the service's delivery schedule.

Cutting the delivery schedule down from 6 to 5 days would save the postal service close to $3.5 billion. The USPS was able to cut nearly $6 billion from their 2009 budget by consolidating services and reducing their workforce by 40,000. But the 2010 forecast isn't pretty either, the postal service is projecting a reduction in mail volume of almost 11 billion items for the year. They are also projecting a year end net loss of $7.8 dollars.

The USPS is not funded by any tax payer dollars, but rather by the sale of postage and other products and the good news there is there are no plans to raise postage this year.