U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahue

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahue prepares to testify at  Senate hearing on the the U.S. Postal Service’s fiscal crisis on Sept. 6 Senate. The postal service’s 7,500 job cuts announced in March rank No. 5 on outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas’s list of 2011 announced workforce reductions.

The U.S. Army’s 8,700-position reduction announced in August was the year’s fourth-largest U.S. cutback, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

When bankrupt retail chain Borders closed this store in Washington, D.C., and others after its bid to find a buyer crumbled, it announced a 10,700-job workforce reduction, which, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, was the year’s third-biggest U.S. job-cut announcement.

A Merck recruitment site invites applicants to shape their futures with the drug giant, but, till this week, Merck’s July announcement of 13,000 job reductions had been the biggest cutback by a U.S. employer this year.

When beleaguered Bank of America announced Monday it would cut 30,000 workers in the next few years, targeting $5 billion a year in cost savings, it was the U.S.’s biggest announced workforce reduction not only of 2011 but since the 30,000-job cut announced by the postal service in 2010, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The biggest U.S. workforce reduction in recent years, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, was the 60,000-job cutback announced in July 1993 by IBM , which here promotes the $1 billion in financing it’s making available this year to qualified small and midsize businesses.

Via Market Watch