Four jobs go as NZ Post shifts

At least four workers will lose their jobs under New Zealand Post plans to shut the Masterton mailroom and shift sorting operations out of the region.

NZ Post spokeswoman Jamie Burke said the company aimed to shift sorting operations to the Manawatu Mail Centre in Palmerston North next year.

At least one full-time and up to four part-time jobs would be axed in the shift, Ms Burke said, although "a detailed analysis of the number of roles that may be affected in Masterton has not been completed yet".

"This is because these roles involve carrying out a number of different tasks, with mail processing only being one aspect of what people do day-to-day. The number of roles affected won't be known until after a detailed analysis is completed," she said.

"We'll work through this process with people who are affected once we have worked through the details."

The company tomorrow starts relocating its Masterton mailroom and delivery operations to northern Queen St, near the ASB Bank, from the rear of the former Masterton Post Office building on the corner of Queen St and Lincoln Rd.

It is understood about 20 workers are based at the present mailroom, including sorting and administration staff as well as urban and rural postal delivery staff.

Workers were told late last week about the shift to the northern Queen St site and were also told the business mail slots at the Lincoln Rd site would not be reinstated at the new location.

Ms Burke said NZ Post was "voluntarily relocating our delivery operations" from Lincoln Rd because the building "does not meet our internal New Zealand Post seismic compliance standards, set nationally for the buildings we occupy. Our decision to move is based purely on our own internal policy. We will be operating from the new location for the next six months and we are assessing options for where we will be located after this period with the landlord."

The former three-storey Masterton Post Office was constructed in 1959, after the demolition of the original post office building that was constructed in 1900, Wairarapa archivist Neil Frances said.

The building where the mailroom was sited had also once housed the Masterton telephone exchange and originally had been a two-storey structure built in the two decades after the original post office was constructed, he said.