TYPISTS IN DEMAND

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 285, 1 September 1942, Page 4

TYPISTS IN DEMAND

High Wages For Younger Girls i ■ Inquiries at an average rate of IS a day are being received by a Wel--lington commercial college for short-hand-typists, and there is no possibility of all the positions that arc offered being filled at this time of the year. Though the amount of work to be done in most Wellington, commercial houses has dwindled there is still a great shortage of trained workers. The withdrawal of men from offices for service in the Army has caused typists’ positions to become vacant, many employers finding that the best way, or even the only way, to get through the work previously done by their male bookkeepers and accountants who have left them, being to promote senior typists already iu the office and familiar with the work the men used to do. In addition, young women employees have volunteered for the services or have been directed to other work by manpower committees, so that the staffs of private offices have been denuded of their lower graded employees. The shortage of the supply of typists and the demand for the services of those who remain available to the private employer have raised the value of their labour. A member of the staff of the college mentioned already states that girls are receiving on leaving the school wages between 30/- and £2, according to their ability. The award wage was 19/3, but, she said, the award did not count today. The case of a girl aged 35 receiving £3/15/- for a week’s temporary employment was mentioned.

Referring to the fact that high wages for juveniles tempt their parents to accept positions for them before they are completely trained, in spite of the warnings of their teachers that the day may come when they will be out of work because of their inefficiency, the same speaker pointed out that the exemption from wages taxation of children under 16 was an important influence in times of high juvenile wages. It was a strong influence toward the sending of children to work before they had completed their training. She suggested that the school leaving "age and the age at which wages taxation became payable should coincide.