BUILDING LABOUR
SUGGESTED REMEDIES FOR THE SHORTAGE.
The present shortage of building labour in New Zealand lias obviously a very 'direct bearing upon tho nuestion whether any big building scheme is practicable just now. Some people have suggested that many carpenters have deserted their trade because they can make better money elsewhere. The same persons 'have urged • that these former carpenters might be ■ brought back in large numbers if sufficient inducements wen; offer;ed.. The Secretary of Labour (Mr. F. \Y, Rowley) has had a return' prepared which shows that in the principal fifteen 'towns of tho Dominion only about ISO carpenters and about 100 painters are standing out of their trade to engage in 'other work. .It is estimated that about half of the carpenters rind the painters mentioned are in occupations quite as 'essential to tho welfare of the country as building; and that ' tho remaining men -ire doing wntcrside or other unskilled work. Obviously, no great reinforcement of building lalxiur is to bo looked for among the comparatively few men thus shown to have drifted out of tho building trade.
Mr. Kowloy was invited to express an opinion upon a suggestion that building tradesmen should bo brought to NewZealand from abroad. He observed that such a scheme was not likely to be very successful, as'fhp very places from which we should seek' to obtain labour were 'afflicted' with a housing problem moTO .urgent perhaps than that confronting us.
• Bather a striking example of how hard .it is to obtain building tradesmen here in Wellington is afforded by tho fact :tliat a contractor who has'undertaken to build five houses for the Department can tonly with considerable difficulty obtain Buflicicnt labour for tho job.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19190917.2.9
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 302, 17 September 1919, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
284BUILDING LABOUR Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 302, 17 September 1919, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.