RETURNED SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 109, 1 February 1919, Page 8

RETURNED SOLDIERS

, PROBLEM OF EMPLOYMENT LIGHT WORK HARD TO OBTAIN - The assistant secretary of the New Zealand - Eoturned Soltliers' Association (Ma\ AV. H. Makin) was yesterday questioned:- -byJ .1 Dominion representative about the aspect of the local labour market as it presented itself to returned soldiers. Mr. Makin said that it was urgently necessary that the attention of employers should be drawn to the fact that great numbers of returned soldiers were looking for light work at tho present time, and were not able to find it easily. Tho liieii in question were fit enough to do ordinary light work, but owing, to slight disabilities which prevented their passing the doctor they ivero from employment by tho Government, During the next two or three months the numbers would be greatly swelled.. The association's employment bureau had been unnblo to place a number of men who had lost a limb. Some of these men would take anything 60 long as it provided tliem with work, and the only things that were offered tliem at present were-positions as liftmen or care- ■ takers. In/uianv cases it was unfair to offer such employment to the men, as some of them at least had been used ii'ii much better clas#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'recently accumulated on tho association s books. While the tide of applicants for light jobs was rising, the association had been offered, by way of light yvoi'K, positions for three or four fencers. lour or five firewood. and scrub-cutters, one bread carter, oue day porter, ono messenger, and one engineer, tho majority of these jobs were obviously not suitable for'men requiring light employment. "It would be only -fair to mention, added Mr. Makin, "that tho City Council and the Eailway Department have very fairly offered to give first consideration ta any returned soldier sent along by the association, but the majority of the men have not been able to pass tlio doctor's test, and have been obliged to renew their application at the Soldiers' Club. . Mr. Makin said that applicants to whom the association's: bureau had nothing to offer were sent 011 to the : Discharged Soldiers' Information Department- and to tho Men's Employment Bureau in Ghuznee Street, but a lot ot them came back day after day, and the 1 only inference to be drawn from the tact was that'the other places had nothing suitable to offer. ■, There were plenty of positions.open for labourers and heavy workers, Mr. Makin concluded,' but little was to be had tor ths type of men who most frequently ' found it necessary to apply to the association for employment.