Big Response To Labour Ad.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31111, 14 July 1966, Page 1

Big Response To Labour Ad.

The Southern Cross Engineering Company, Ltd., has gained more than 100 applicants for a job from a single advertisement in a Manchester newspaper. This may begin a new imimgration policy for New Zealand engineering companies.

The company's works director (Mr M. C. Edsall) yesterday said that a scheme on these lines, although in the embryo stages, was being considered by the engineering group of the New Zea-

land Manufacturers’ Federation. The newly appointed executive officer of the federation (Mr M. F. Dawson) visited Mr Edsall yesterday to discuss the feasibility of such a scheme to provide sufficient skilled labour for New Zealand engineering companies. Mr Edsall said it was suggested that a plan be operated in the four main centres for manufacturers wanting skilled labour to contribute a levy. Advertisements would be put in the newspapers in England with these funds. Employers wanting labour who subsscribed to the levy would be able to call through their respective manufacturers’ associations, on the pool

I of labour created by the advertisements. The president of the association (Mr C. W. Mace) said the engineering group of the federation would discuss obtaining labour at its quarterly meeting in Auckland on Tuesday. Mr Edsall said that he planned to pick out the best 12 of the 100 applicants who had answered his firm’s advertisement in the Manchester newspaper. They included fitters, turners, universal millers, welders and automatic machine fitters. The 12 men were being selected in Manchester by a member of his staff. He would fly them under the Government’s filler-loading

plan where the employer paid £5O towards the air fare of a worker and his family or £25 towards the air fare of a single man. They could arrive in three months to five months. Mr Edsall was told of the success of the Manchester advertisement by radio-tele-phone on Monday morning. He told the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association immediately in the hope that the large response might aid other Christchurch engineering companies. Mr Edsall said New Zealand had stupid immigration laws. Under the Australian immigration policy, manufacturers could get immigrants at **£lo a pop.” .F