WASHINGTON (PNN) - May 9, 2012 – The U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it is abandoning plans to close thousands of post offices and instead will drastically reduce hours at most of its rural outposts, a change that will affect about a third of the country’s retail mail network.

Postal officials, bowing to community and congressional pressure to keep rural service afloat while the debt-ridden agency cuts costs, said they will offer early retirement incentives to tens of thousands of postmasters. The result will be a dramatic change for customers: window hours will drop from the current eight to as few as two a day.

The post offices will be staffed by part-time workers - either career employees or hourly contract staff - who will take the place of postmasters. Most would receive reduced benefits or none at all.

In the past year, officials studied roughly 17,000 rural post offices in the network, a majority of which lose money. They concluded that 13,000 of them - scattered across the country -should operate on a reduced schedule, staying open anywhere from two to six hours a day.

Customers will still have all-day access to their mailboxes in post office lobbies.