Royal Mail will create thousands of temporary jobs in London and the South East this Christmas to help meet the surge in demand.

The firm said it will recruit around 18,000 new workers nationwide to handle the festive postbag, with around 2,000 of these in the Thames Valley area. The jobs will be created in mail and distribution centres, where staff will help sort millions of items. The new posts will run from November to January next year. Royal Mail's managing director of operations and modernisation, Mark Higson, said: "Christmas is the busiest time of the year for Royal Mail and we plan all year round to help ensure we deliver the best possible service to our customers.

"On peak days, the volume of cards, letters and packets we handle is around double the 62 million items we deal with on an average day."

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