BRITAIN'S Army needs to recruit 15,000 soldiers every year so its soldiers have taken to the streets of Andover in a bid to get more youngsters to sign up for a life in uniform.

As part of Operation Southern Soldier, soldiers from the Army Air Corps have been on the streets handing out leaflets and talking to the public.

In a bid to make the jobs available in the Army more understandable, and to make them less confusing for civilians and more competitive with civvy street, the Army has restructered its 'job offerings' into nine easily understood career groups. The career groups now quoted are engineering, logistics, IT, healthcare, administration and finance, combat, officer, specialist careers and further education.

Soldiers from the Royal Corps of Signals, who had brought the campaign to Andover, said that interest in Army careers had been greater in Winchester than in Andover.

Of course, with unemployment in north Hampshire running at below one per cent all employers face an uphill task recruiting new workers.