Mail sorters, processors and machine operators will shrink by 68, 900, and there will be 42, 100 fewer sewing machine operators.

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While mail sorters and carpenters are male-dominated, for example, office workers and sewing machine operators are female-dominated occupations.

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Technology has certainly put postal service mail sorters on the chopping block.

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Authorities said they were checking whether an air pressure machine used to clean mail sorters may have spread anthrax spores.

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To complicate things, it also had to work in the vertical position, which is how letters travel in automated sorters.

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Good colour sorters need to learn to tell three dozen leaf shades ranging from a deep brown to a rich green at a glance.

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FedEx equips package sorters with scanners built into a ring on their finger, which communicate wirelessly with a computer on their waist, itself in contact with a central computer, keeping tracking information up-to-the-minute accurate.

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Pitney Bowes, which makes products related to post, such as sorters and franking machines, could see demand for its services rise if the delivery week is cut short, says its chief financial officer, Michael Monahan.

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Once a package and its destination are identified, the Worldport system routes it to the appropriate place, all while keeping track of where each item is at all times on the 33, 245 conveyors and 2.6 miles of tilt-tray sorters.

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Some sorters work this way.

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