Australia's largest Aboriginal recruitment agency is urging big business to start employing Indigenous Year 11 and 12 school students.

This year the Aboriginal Employment Strategy has 283 school students looking for traineeships, but places are few and far between.

Telstra in Perth currently employs four Year 12 Aboriginal students as part of the school-based traineeship program.

At the moment they work two days a week. Next year they will be employed 30 hours a week as well as training for a certificate three in business.

Telstra customer service delivery manager Terry Mackinley says it is a two year program.

"The first year of the program they come in for two days a week whilst completing Year 12," he said.

"Assuming that they pass Year 12, we will offer them a second year on the traineeship program which takes them to five days a week, six hours a day.

"Their aim at the end of the two year program is to incorporate those individuals into our headcount."

Mr Mackinley says as part of their second year on the program they also complete a certificate three in business.

"At 17 you go through the Year 12 process but they are getting a bit of business acumen while they are at it," he said.

"They are learning about how to function in the business world. They are learning about the level of skills which will be valuable to them in the future.

"They will also not be left looking for employment next year now that they have graduated, they will actually be in with the company.

"They will have a chance to further develop those skills to take up the next step."

Not enough placements</h3>;

Telstra is not the first company to take on school-based trainees. The big four banks have also been involved in the program. But this is not enough.

There has been a 40 per cent increase number of Year and 11 and 12 students looking for these school based traineeships and there simply are not enough placements.

Aboriginal Employment Strategy chief executive Danny Lester says the corporate world needs to step up.

"One of the critical things that we are working towards is to engage more corporate organisations, local businesses, medium to small enterprises and also the large organisations," he said.

"We really want employers to embrace this new concept and now is the time to embrace it because we are out of the recession and the economy is certainly quite optimistic."

Mr Lester says the school-based traineeships have been running for six years and up to 80 per cent of its participants have found full time work after the program finished.

"The results in relation to our outcomes as a service provider in this field is really profound," he said.

"Over the last three years we have placed over 500 Indigenous people in school-based traineeships and we are the national leaders. We achieve over 80 per cent retention over a two year program.

"It is never before heard of and it is 50 per cent higher than the national average so we are proud of that and employers are starting to recognise that we know how to do this thing called Indigenous employment and we do it well."