Excerpt from Report on Veterans in the Federal Government

The U. S. Postal Service (Postal Service) is one of the largest employers of veterans in the nation, second only to the Department of Defense. During FY 2006, the Postal Service employed 695,890 career employees. This was a decrease of 8,313 employees from the 704,203 employed during FY 2005 (Table 13).
 
 There were 179,348 veterans employed in the Postal Service during FY 2006. This is a decrease of 7,796 veterans from the 187,144 during FY 2005. Disabled veterans represented 8.8 percent (61,482) of the Postal Service’s career workforce, as compared to 9.0 percent (63,456) during FY 2005. The representation of disabled veterans in the Postal Service shows a decline of 1,974 disabled veterans (Table 13). Additionally, the Postal Service’s representation of 30 percent or more disabled veterans declined by 36 from 16,859 in FY 2005 to 16,823 in FY 2006 (Table 13).
 
 In FY 2006, veterans received 23.9 percent (6,859) of the promotions, as compared to 25.1 percent (7,270) in FY 2005. Disabled veterans received 9.5 percent (2,725) of all Postal Service promotions (28,696) in FY 2006, as compared to 10.0 percent (2,883) in 2005. This was a decrease of 158 promotions for disabled veterans. Postal Service veterans rated as 30 percent or more disabled received 2.8 percent (810) of the total promotions in FY 2006 as compared to 2.9 percent (844) during FY 2005. This was a decrease of 34 advancements for 30 percent or more disabled veterans. The promotion figures in the table for Postal Service include reassignments of Postal Career Executive Service employees and promotions to Executive and Administrative salary positions.
 
 In advancement and promotions, disabled veterans with less than a 30 percent disability rating accounted for 10.3 percent (2,696) of the total career hires, compared to 7.4 percent (2,620) in FY 2005. This was an increase of 2.9 percentage points. Additionally, 30 percent or more disabled veterans constituted 4.6 percent (1,191) of total career hires, as compared to 3.2 percent (1,144) in FY 2005. This was an increase of 1.4 percentage points.
 
 Although the number of disabled veterans with a 30 percent or more disability rating has declined as shown in Table 13 over the past four years, the percentage of the total workforce has remained steady at 2.4 percent. In addition, Table 13 shows the increasing percentage of 30 percent or more disabled veterans in both categories as a percent of veterans and percent of disabled veterans.