RETURNED SOLDIERS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16436, 1 February 1919, Page 8

RETURNED SOLDIERS.

EMPLOYMENT QUESTION,

(press association telegram.)

WELLINGTON, January 31. Tho assistant-secretary of tho New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, questioned about the state of the local labour market as it presented itself to returned soldiers, said that it was urgently necessary that the attention of employers should be drawn to tho fact that great numbers of returned soldiers were looking'for light wo?k at the present time and were not able to find it easily. The men in question were fit enough to do ordinary light work, but owing to slight disabilities, which prevented their passing the doctor, they were debarred from employment by the Government. During the next two or three months the numbers would be greatly swelled. The Association's employment Ibureaii had been unable to place a number of men who liad lost a limb. Some of these men would take anything so long as it provided them with work, and the only things that were offered them at present were positions as liftmen or caretakers. In many cases it was unfair to offer such employment to the men, as some of them, at least had been used to a much better class of work and had been debarred from returning to it through, say, the loss of an arm. Fifty applicants, for whom the Association could find nothing suitable, had recentlv accumulated on the Association's books, while tho tide of applicants for light jobs was rising The Association had been offered hv wav of light work positions for fencers firewood-cutters, scrub-cutters, bread carters, porters, messengers, and en gineers.