Fayetteville Postal Plant To Close; More Than 180 Jobs Lost

The U.S. Postal Service will close a facility in Fayetteville in February 2007, eliminating 189 jobs.

The Remote Encoding Center opened as a temporary site in 1994. At the facility, workers manually read addresses that computers can't read. However, officials said that improved technology has created mail-sorting machines that can read virtually all addresses, eliminating the need for the human help.

Postal officials said that because the plant was never intended to be permanent, the workers who will be laid off weren't considered full-time employees. More than 50 regular postal workers will be transferred to other facilities.

According to officials, there were 55 similar facilities across the U.S. All of them are now in the process of closing.