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 1.5 million people and earning revenues of more than $148 billion per year. The Postal and Shipping Sector moves hundreds of millions of 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 millions of destinations. The sector is highly concentrated, with a handful of providers holding roughly 96 percent of the market share.

Sector-specific assets include: high-volume automated processing facilities; tens of thousands of local delivery units; many and varied collection, acceptance, and retail operations; mail transport equipment; and information and communications networks. Beyond physical and cyber assets, the most critical sector asset is public trust.

The Postal and Shipping Sector has many dependencies and interrelationships with a wide range of other sectors, including its potential role as a threat vector to other sectors and the general public. The Banking and Finance, Government Facilities, Commercial Facilities and Public Health and Healthcare sectors all rely heavily on the Postal and Shipping Sector for the shipment and delivery of critical documents and packages. The Postal and Shipping Sector itself relies on:

1. the Transportation Systems Sector for the movement of mail and packages by air, road, or rail, as well as being a major customer of the sector;
2. the Energy Sector for power, as well as being a customer of the sector; and
3. the Information Technology and Communications sectors for supporting logistics operations and automatic identification and sorting.

These sectors are also key customers. All of these sectors are working together to ensure that their efforts support each other.