No Haircuts, No Jobs

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30961, 18 January 1966, Page 1

No Haircuts, No Jobs

(A’.Z Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jan. 17. Because of their shoulder • length wavy locks two young men cannot find jobs in Auckland. Although they have been to nearly 30 employers since Chirstmas, they have been told time and time again that it is useless to apply unless they cut their hair. Today Dave Vermillion, aged 21, and Roger Davies, 19, tried five times for jobs and were "knocked back" each time. Mr Davies said later: “I have no intention at all of cutting my hair.” Mr Vermillion said: “I have been determined to hang on to mine, but it

looks as if it will have to be cut for a man to get a job.”

The young men have been growing their hair for the last eight or nine months.

Mr Davies, who is Auckland born, would like work as a general display artist. He has compromised, however, by seeking factory work —with no luck. His friend, who was born in the United States and has spent much of his life in Australia, had his hair cut by the police in Australia when it had grown to 11 inches.

“There was a whole mob of us with long hair, but I was the one they caught,” he said. Mr Vermillion said

there were "miles of others” like them in /Vuckland who had the same job problem.

"We are ridiculed and shoved around more than the leather-jacket crowds who stand on street corners,” he said. “People think we are much worse because we have long hair, but we behave ourseves far better.

“Drunk, clean-cut New Zealand youths try to pick fights with us, but if we got into a fight we’d be picked up as long-haired louts.”

The two young men, whose money is running out and who share a bedsitting room in Auckland, are going to carry on looking for work.