Processing mail objects in a mail processing center involves several steps and operations, in particular dispatching as well as sorting by destination. The purpose of this paper is to present a model for the part-time worker staffing and allocation problem as it arises at the parcel sorting area in a mail processing center. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear program model to minimize the variable part-time workforce related cost. Hot only the characteristics of the sorting operations but also the dispatching requirements of the vehicles are reflected into the model. Six example problems with three different daily amounts of arriving mail are solved with LINGO to demonstrate the effectiveness of the 7-level induction option for the parcel sorting machine over the current 3-level one. The results indicate that measurable savings can be achieved by departing from current practice.