Jobs created at Christmas sorting office

A TEMPORARY Royal Mail parcel sorting centre will open in Warwickshire for the Christmas period, creating 222 jobs.

The centre in Atherstone in North Warwickshire is one of nine that are being set up to sort a significant proportion of the seasonal parcels Royal Mail handles, before they are delivered to the door by Royal Mail’s postmen and women.

One will be in Coventry, creating 200 jobs, with the others Bathgate in West Lothian, Rochdale, Leeds, Puntyclun in South Wales, Birmingham, Swindon and Greenford.

They will open on a phased basis from next Monday, 31st October.

Around 3,300 seasonal workers will be based in the parcel sorting centres, supporting Royal Mail’s 120,000 permanent postmen and women, who sort and deliver the mail all year round, including Christmas which is the busiest time of the year for the UK postal service.

Royal Mail Group is taking on around 19,000 seasonal workers in total this year across its operations.

A spokesman said: "This is the sixth year that Royal Mail has opened a dedicated network of parcel sort centres. The use of additional temporary parcel sort centres is now an integral part of Royal Mail’s substantial financial commitment to additional resources at Christmas, to handle the festive mail bag."

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