VETS, football clubs and theatres apply here - more employers are needed to provide work experience placements for teenagers in the York area.

From June until October around 2,200 students will venture out into the working world to spend two weeks with 1,500 employers in the York area.

But more employers are always needed and not just in the ever-popular areas of animal work, and sport and showbiz stardom.

Mike Jones, from the educational charity Trident, which organises the placements, said employers often found them a good way of recruiting Saturday or holiday staff, as well as doing their bit for the wider education of pupils.

"We have a lot of high street retailers who use it as a good way of looking at a student for a fortnight," he said.

"But the challenge we're facing is that a lot of companies are reorganising and downsizing and whatever anyone says, taking a young student for a fortnight is an altruistic thing - the vast majority do it because they feel they want to put something back into the system.

"Many of the students who are at the age when they think the working world is exciting and they learn that a lot of working life is routine.

"For the very first time they're away from all their friends, in an environment they're not sure of, having to dress quite differently and having to apply codes of conduct. They realise 35 hours a week is hard work."

Mark Baker, 15, from Haxby, a Year 11 student at Joseph Rowntree School in New Earswick, did his two weeks' work experience in the service office at Polar Ford at Monks Cross last summer.

He said: "At the end of the first week the lady that was my boss said I'd been very useful around the office and asked me if I wanted to come back and work over the summer. It made me realise I want to work in an office and was a really good experience in itself. It is something very different and you can test yourself in a new environment."

Jo Morley, service marketing specialist, who offered him the summer job at Polar Ford, said: "Mark was particularly good because he picked things up really quickly, managed his own time and was able to turn his hand to anything.

"In the day-to-day running of a business, there are always some things that are put to one side, things that you mean to get round to, and having a Trident student either frees you up to get on with doing them, or the Trident student can work on them."

You can contact Trident on 01904 427111.

Updated: 15:14 Wednesday, April 24, 2002