PLACEMENT SCHEME

Evening Star, Issue 22444, 15 September 1936, Page 11

PLACEMENT SCHEME

GETTING MEN BACK TO WORK Letters received by the placement officers express appreciation of the success of the Labour Department’s scheme for getting men back to work. An important sawmilling company writes:—“ We would like to take this opportunity to compliment your department for the pains you take to get the fullest information regarding those seeiking employment. This will result in rendering much assistance to both employer and employee.” Extreme care in selecting the men recommended for the employers’ consideration is a basic principle of the scheme, and that fact is chiefly responsible for the effective co-operation that employers have accorded all placement officers. A Dunedin business man, writing on the same subject, says:—“Thanks to your very thorough way of finding employment, has been placed in a job that should turn out well for him. I regard this scheme as a great advancement.” A wool and skin merchant expresses his opinion in these terms:—“l consider this placement scheme is a splendid thing for both employers and employees.” A farm worker taken off relief and placed in a farm job at a wage of 35s per week and “ found ’’ adds a proviso to his letter of thanks:—“ I thank you for getting employment for me- I have no doubt that if you help others as you have helped m© there will be very little unemployment—provided the men are prepared to work.” The safeguards provided under the placement scheme are sufficient to weed out the few men who are not prepared to work when offered normal employment. A feature of the letters of thanks which are being received from ex-relief workers who have been placed in permanent private employment through the agency of the placement scheme is the frequent reference to the wholesome physical and mental effect upon themselves and their families. This appears to provide definite evidence of the amazing psychological reaction when regular well-paid employment succeeds a lengthy period of comparatively uneconomic and necessarily lower-paid work under relief conditions. A typical example is that of the man who wrote: “ Accept my family’s heartfelt thanks for having secured work for me. You may not realise the joy it has brought in my home, but I can. assure you that my wife is 50 per cent, on the road to recovery after serious illness for four years.” Another aspect was stressed by a small householder whose long period on relief was ended when a placement officer arranged for his employment in a full-time job. In a letter of thanks be said; “It came at a most opportune time, as ray rates and insurance were due, and I have now cleared away this worry and responsibility.” Local bodies are. no doubt, in common with hundreds of business concerns in the Dominion, experiencing the beneficial effects of the placement scheme’s persistent and successful rehabilitation campaign.