ROYAL Mail has started its annual recruitment drive to help with the Christmas post, saying 19,000 temporary jobs will be available.

The positions will start in mid-November until early January, with work peaking in December.

Most of the roles will be supporting Royal Mail's 124,000 permanent staff who sort and deliver the post.

Royal Mail's chief operations officer, Sue Whalley, 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.

"Every Christmas, we make a substantial financial commitment in additional resources to handle the festive mailbag, including the recruitment of thousands of temporary workers."

In the meantime, from today, the Royal Mail's maximum small parcel format will be much bigger in size.

This means that consumers and smaller firms will be able to put bigger items - or more items - into a small parcel. The change combines the largest dimensions of the two existing formats for small parcels, creating a single, bigger small parcel format measuring 45cm x 35cm x 16cm.