Micro-shift app gets students super-short jobs

An app is helping students pick up super-short work contracts at the touch of a button.

Its developers say it's also addressing a staff shortage crisis in the UK's hospitality sector.

"Stint,"the app, is now operating in 32 cities, working with more than 1,000 hospitality businesses and 75,000 students.

Pranav Jain is in his final year at University College London:

"Just finding work when I want to work is something that a student can only hope for, and with Stint I can decide to work a two-hour shift between lectures. It's as good as that,"

Sol Schlagman co-founded the business with his brother in 2018 to allow students to cherry-pick when, where and for how long they would like to work:

"A university student would go onto the app, they would put on their availability, they would tell us where they want to work and then we would link that university student to the hospitality business,"

UK job vacancies rose to almost a million from April to July this year.

Some hotels, restaurants, and bars say they have struggled getting enough staff to stay open.

Apps like Stint could be the answer for businesses unwilling to hire part-time staff.

But critics say they lead to poor customer service, with question marks around staff training and workers' rights.