ABOUT 450 jobs are being created to help Royal Mail cope over the busy Christmas period.

The extra staff are to be taken on in temporary positions to support its regular team of data entry workers at the customer service centre in Etruria.

Staff will be helping to decipher the addresses of items which cannot be read automatically by mail machines.

The jobs will start in mid-November and run until about the week before Christmas.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Mail volumes almost double on peak days in December and it is important that people properly address their Christmas cards and use the postcode.

"We expect to take on about 450 temporary workers at the Stoke-on-Trent centre to help us handle the millions of Christmas cards and letters during the festive period."

About 116 staff currently work at the Manual Data Entry Centre, in Media Way, in a mixture of full and part-time jobs.

They deal with mail from all over the country which has difficult to read handwriting or incomplete addresses.

Workers are shown a photograph of the address on an envelope or parcel and then input the correct data, usually the first part of the destination's post code, into a computer system.

This then allows the mail to be processed by a sorting machine rather than by hand.

Letters and cards with clearly-written addresses and a postcode can be read by machines and handled 20 times faster than by hand.

Royal Mail takes on hundreds of people at its Etruria customer service centre, and similar sites nationwide each Christmas.

The positions are a mixture of full and part-time roles. Hours available will include an evening shift and a night shift.

Training will be provided but the pay rate has not yet been disclosed and the jobs will be advertised in the coming weeks.

They have been welcomed by those living nearest to the centre.

Labour Councillor Mervin Smith, the Stoke-on-Trent City Council's cabinet member for city development, said: "It is good to see any jobs coming into the city and it is a welcome boost in the run-up to Christmas.

"But, at the same time, we would like to see more long-term sustainable jobs and our commitment is to work as hard as possible to attract such jobs to our city."

Labour councillor Amjid Wazir, whose Hanley West and Shelton ward covers Etruria, said: "These jobs are not just good for my ward, but for the whole city.

"Even though they are temporary, they are jobs for people to take up. They could be a good training ground for people, and will provide good experience."

Etruria Residents' Association is currently assessing which community issues to tackle next.

But chairman Dave Martin, of Mere Side Close, Etruria, said: "Any work is always welcome around here, especially around Christmas when people need the money."

The 61-year-old added: "There is a big student population around Shelton and Etruria so I would think they would look forward to some part-time work and be interested in applying."