The Postal Service yesterday confirmed that the decline in mail volumes and revenue accelerated in January. Total mail volume was down 16.3% for the month, compared with an 11.0% drop for the fiscal year to date. The sharpest decline came in Standard Mail, down 22.3% compared with January 2008. First Class mail was down 10.8%.

Because of last May’s rate increase, the 16.3% drop in volume produced a revenue drop of 11.8%. That’s still considerably higher than the 7.8% decline for the fiscal year to date. More worrisome is the fact that total expenses have barely dropped since last year- they were down just 1.1% in January, and year to date. Employee work hours declined by 8% compared with last year, but employee salaries and benefits payments dropped by less than a percentage point. Expenses for City Carrier salaries actually increased 1.5%, while “Other” salaries, which includes maintenance, administrative and support personnel, increased by 3.7%.

The filing also confirms that the USPS year to date operating defecit stood at $1.1 billion at the end of January, with eight months still to come in the 2009 fiscal year.

(The postal service cautions that the data in the reports is unaudited and preliminary. In particular, the statistical methods used for estimating revenue, pieces and weight are designed to be valid on a quarterly rather than monthly basis.)