This short report was first published as a lead story for our Nouseletter.
York’s award-winning Christmas Market has returned for another year. The market officially opened on 14 November and will continue to light up Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square until 22 December. It is open every day from 10am to 7pm. The Christmas Market is a great place to shop for seasonal gifts and the food and drink stalls are always popular too.
Many of these larger stalls, like Herbies Treehouse, are pop-up food and drink vendors that operate at Christmas Markets in most major UK cities. These stalls offer well-paid, flexible part-time jobs for young people, including students.
The Christmas Market in York has been around for almost 30 years - it began in 1997 and was originally called St Nicholas Fair, with only 12 stalls. This year there are 75, and 80% of traders are from Yorkshire.
As always, the Christmas Market has a wide array of independent businesses and artists selling handmade gifts. You can expect to see Viking drinking horns in various sizes, handmade printing stamps and wax seals, eco-friendly Yorkshire jewellery and even terrariums.
Many established shops in York, such as Soctopus and Avorium, also have stalls to attract new customers.
Nouse has spoken to three students who are working this year at stalls in the Christmas Market. We have anonymised their identities and those of their employers.
One student, with experience working in two different market stalls preparing food felt there employer had “bad communication”. They claimed there was no response to their texts when they had to quit the job for personal reasons. They also allege they were never told when their breaks were, so spent their first few shifts working non-stop.
They also described abusive behaviour from one co-worker, who would throw food refuse at them just “because it’s funny”.
Another student, who worked through the whole Christmas Season last year, felt “overworked”. They were working on a part-time 20 hour contract, but “ended up working 45 hours a week.”
When they complained about this workload, they allege their employer did nothing, which resulted in them contracting “severe tendonitis”, which left them in “excruciating pain”.
Every student we talked to mentioned the physical challenge of working in the cold. On many days students work in stalls with no heaters, in sub-zero conditions.
When asked how they coped with this, one student told us that “I had to wear 8 layers, and put hand warmers in my bra.”
Overall though, the students we talked to had a positive outlook on their experiences. They emphasised good pay, and that on the whole they were looked after by their employers with “generous breaks”, and “warm fleeces to wear”.
Missing Nouse's short-form reports? Want more of this style of news-writing? Sign-up to Nouse's weekly Nouseletter for free today! You'll hear from our news, politics and Muse editors about news that affects YOU!
Sign up by following this link: https://forms.gle/SueucQRqKziR5ovK8
