The Royal Mail sorting office in Cowley has recruited the 360 temporary staff it needs to deal with the Christmas post.

A letter-sorting machine in action

They have joined the 1,500-strong workforce at a time of massive changes in the postal system.

This week the sorting office expects to handle 12.6 million items.

On the busiest day, it will see more than three million items, compared with 1.2 million on a normal day.

Planning starts in January for the massive operation, which not only deals with Christmas cards and presents, but also the mailshots and catalogues.

Some 1,380 postmen and women will deliver to 243,907 points -- both homes and businesses, with 41 extra vehicles hired to supplement Royal Mail's fleet of 485. Students have traditionally made up about 80 per cent of temporary Christmas postal staff, but Royal Mail Oxford's Christmas planner Nawaz Hussein said the organisation was trying to widen its intake.

"Students often want to leave Oxford around December 16 to 18, just when things are at their peak, so we are trying to change our demographics," he said.

The Christmas post presents special problems, not least the fact that many people create a pile of cards for hand delivery, and put it into the postbox by mistake, so that the sorting machinery is faced with envelopes labelled simply "Fred" or "Uncle Bert".

Next year, fewer temporary staff will be needed because the coders, who attach postcodes to addresses not recognised by the computer, will be concentrated in three regional centres in Plymouth, Stoke and Southport.

Each centre will employ up to 2,000 staff.

Noel Fay, of the Oxford branch of the Communication Workers' Union, said that although Royal Mail was axing 30,000 jobs across the country, the union was hoping that no jobs would be lost in Oxford.

"We're coping with massive changes and we're working with the employer to make sure our members are relocated to other duties," he said.

**Wednesday is the last day for second-class post to arrive by Christmas.

Saturday is the deadline for first-class post.