TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – The United States Postal Service is gearing up for what is sure to be another busy holiday season. This year though, something new. Advanced technology the postal service says will get your packages where they need to go — on time.

The Ybor City Package Support Annex is one of 45 annexes opened across the country to help with the massive amount of mail on its way out. More buildings, means the need for more employees. While the postal service has struggled with that in the past, now, the robots are being brought in to save Christmas.

Halloween may be over, but that means the holiday season is here.

“I went through it last year, so I definitely know what’s coming,” said LeeAnna jones, a USPS worker.

Soon, hundreds of millions of packages will be getting picked up and dropped off across the country.

“We get excited! This is our time to shine. This is the one time of year we’ve been planning since March,” said Megan Conley, the Ybor City USPS plant manager.

Tampa Bay alone processed 12 and a half million parcels last December.

“I look for that number to be more this year, and I feel like we have the firepower to get through it,” said Conley.

Part of that firepower is the Single Induction Parcel Sorter or S.I.P.S. One of only 112 machines sent out to cities across America before peak season. It can sort three thousand parcels an hour.

“Before the machine, everything was manual. Employees had to manually pick up the parcel, look at the zip code, and then manually throw it off,” said Conley.

“It’s taking a lot of the pressure off. We have these deadlines, these dispatch times that we have to make,” said Jones.

The machine is part of the postal service’s “Delivering for America” plan. Over ten years, $40 million invested in people, equipment, and technology. That includes hiring 40,000 employees in addition to the 644,000 they already have.

Not an easy thing to do in years past for the struggling agency. This year U.S.P.S. says they will deliver.

“That should be plenty to handle the holiday mail. Especially with these new machines. You don’t need as many people to sort because they have such a high capacity,” said David Walton.

The post office says there are still have plenty of jobs to fill in Tampa. They are looking for thousands of new workers for the holiday season and beyond.