GIRLS IN OFFICES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 107, 30 January 1919, Page 2

GIRLS IN OFFICES

EETUBNBD SOLDIER'S COMMENT. Tho fact that competent cloiks are at present returning from the front and finding themselves unable to obtain employment owing to the presenco of female clerks in a very largo number of businesses, was referred to by Mr. W. E. Leadley, secretary of the Christchurch branch of the Returned Soldiers' Association, iu the course of a conversation with a "Press" representative. "1 had nine .competent clerks looking for -work on my books all last week," said Mr. Leadley, "and now I have still got them all, and another one in addition. I havo not been able to place any of them, and simply because girls hold tho positions now. Theso men volunteered for (he front and gave 'iip their jobs voluntarily, and now that they have given their best, they como back and find themselves, unable to got work. The girls, it appears, ore doing "better for themselves than they have ever done before, and are not disposed to give u.p their situations to the men who are coming 'back, though of course they would never have had (hem had those men not gone awny. Such being the case,-1 thinl? it is a matter for. the employers to take up, and to see that justico is done lo thaso who went away. Mind you, 1 am not speaking iir reference to situations which are essentially girls' situations, such as shorthandlypistes, etc., but to cjerks, ledger-ke.-perE, etc., in which kind of situations so many girls aive now filling the breach. Some people have tho idea that the present number of applications for work is not out of the ordinary, but it is. not now that we have to think of so much as in six months' time, when thousands of men will bo returning and looking for work. "I have heard of cases," Mr. Leadley added, "of men previously in the Government service who are coming back and finding that as girls aro in their old positions there is no place for them. That state of affairs is, I think, more due to the heads of Departments than to the Government, itself, but if the Government does not set an example, what can wo expect privalo employers to do?"