BUSY IN AUCKLAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 136, 6 December 1938, Page 12

BUSY IN AUCKLAND

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day

Activity in the clothing manufacturing trade in Auckland is described as intense. Overtime is being regularly worked in an endeavour to complete orders before Christmas.

In the normal course of events the industry would be busy at this period, but the chief reason for the exceptional rush is attributed to the leeway in work resulting from staffing disorganisation during the measles epidemic.

"In the past six weeks my factory has,produced more than in the previous six months," said one manufacturer. "Earlier in the year retailers were overstocked and delayed lodging orders for replacements until well into the year. Those conditions threw our operations out of gear, and when orders were beginning to pick up again staffs became depleted through illness. During a good period of the epidemic there was an average in my factory of 30 workers a week absent through measles. Modern methods of manufacture are particularly affected in epidemics, for the absence of a few skilled key workers can easily cause almost complete disorganisation. Many factories suffered particularly in this way, but now that staffs are back to normal the effort to make up the leeway, involving heavy overtime payments, is loading the costs of manu : facture." * !