THE LABOUR MARKET.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 485, 19 April 1909, Page 4

THE LABOUR MARKET.

/The Journal of thei Department of Labour for the current month does not make cheerful reading. "Quiet" and '■slack" are tho prevailing terms in.referenco to the: condition of the labour market, though ."fair"•■: is also sprinkled through its pages. It is customary for many of the avenues of employment to close in a little at this time of the year; but the, position at the present time is more, serious than usual, and the prospects for. the "coming winter are not en- : epuraging. In these circumstances, it becomes a matter of serious importance to find that the Government, in ■ addition tp retrenching in connection 'with its clorical staffs, has found it necessary to reduce the , number of its employees in the railway workshops. A large number of hands has already been dismissed, at Addington, and it is stated that this is only' the beginning—that more.are to.follow; The fact that these dismissals have - occurred in -consequence.'- of-the completion of.;certain work in hand, and that the men whose services' have been dispensed with : are merely/.'"casuals" in no way.: minimises the seriousnesa of tho situation. The men, or most of them,' have been absent sufficiently long from private employment to make them a surplus quantity so far as the, labour' market is concerned, and in the present state of trade there is little chance of any large proportion of them being absorbed through' the ordinary ". channels of 'employment. The coachbuilding trades are, fairly : active,! but practically everywhere throughout the D6minion the engineering trades aro reported to be "slack", or "quiet." What, then, is to become,of these men? The probability is that unless there is prospect of renewed activity in the: Government workshops many of them will be forced .to leave tho : country. There is little-to be gained by uttering useless regrets at the fact that the Government had not the courage to openly face the. situation, which they must have' been aware of months before the: Prime'- Minister took the country partly into his:'confidence and announced his' drastic scheme of retrenchment. 'The unjustifiable nature of the attempts of Ministers .to coverup the financial drift with hackneyed expressions of confidence must have been exposed in their full nakedness to all thinking'people ere this. But what we wish to direct attention to is the unwisdom of the action of the Government in throwing into an already congested labour; market these largo bodies of.men, unless' under tho direst necessity. No' one can question the need for retrenchment, but, as we have urged on previous occasions, that retrenchment should be carried out in the manner least likely to inflict hardship on the individuals directly concerned and the community as a whole. The tendency of the Government appears to bo to go from ono extreme to the other, and instead of a gradual scheme of retrenchment we have the wholesale dismissals , already announced, with more to follow. : The v result promises to be complete disorganisation of the labour market; probability of an exodus of ablebodied workers and a heavy drain on the various charitable aid departments. Ministers must not be saddled with the whole of tho blame for this, but the manner in which they have misled the country and encouraged public and private oxtravagance, even up to the last min-

ute, with their persistent declarations of a buoyant finance, is largely responsible for no provision having been made for a period of slackness and depression. It is their duty now to endeavour by every reasonable means to minimise the hardships which must follow on their actions. The first step in that direction should be to spread their. retrenchment of public employees over as long a period as is reasonably possible, and to give notice at the ; earliest moment to such, employees whose services are to be dispensed with, so that : they may have all tho time possible to look around for fresh employment, and to mako such other preparations as may be within their power for their soming time.of unemployment.