IMPRESSIVE RECORD.

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 20, 25 January 1937, Page 5

IMPRESSIVE RECORD.

PLACEMENT SERVICE REVIEWED. WELLINGTON, Saturday. The State Placement Service return for its first week’s operations during the week ended 30th May last disclosed that 279 positions had been found, 154 being of a temporary nature and the balance being classed as permanent. That was something of an achievement for a scheme that had followed closely on the heels of a succession of ambitious plans for providing work for the Dominion's unemployed and for stimulating industries, but which had not resulted in appreciably reducing the aggregate unemployment registrations by direct absorption in private employment. The public was not impressed by the announcement because it had no knowledge of the weeks that had been occupied in planning the groundwork of the service, of the systematic organisation that was put into every detail, nor of the care that had been exercised in selecting the right type of officers to administer it. A new angle of attack. —This was for New Zealand an entirely new method of dealing with unemployment, and therefore an administrative system completely different from those that had been evolved for the “relief” schemes. It tackled the problem by ignoring the difficulty of remployment, and after having experienced, for more than five years, a steadily-growing increase in the aggregate registrations, the public was disposed to regard such an attitude as rank heresy. Weekly Records Mount Up.—The second week’s placements numbered 493, an increase of 214 on those of the previous week, but the total (704) for the third week, ended June 13th., showed an increase of only 211, and the critics merely shrugged their shoulders and put the placement service out of their minds. The organiser of the service, and its administrative officers, on the other hand, watched with satisfaction their fledgeling making haste slowly, and when the seventh week’s excess reached 400 there appeared to be reasonable grounds for the belief that the result justified all the hopes centred upon the new a<_«ieme. All that seemed to be needed now was continuous systematised, honest effort, and as this activity had been anticipated the weekly records from the placement offices began to expand in a remarkable manner. At the end of September, four months after the commencement of the service, the number of jobs found was 8195, which exceeded by 769 those for the previous week. Six weeks later the gross total had risen to 12,894, the number of placements for the week ended November 7th. being 1030. During the following six weeks to December 19th. the aggregate had risen, by jumps of more than ore thousand each week, to the surprising figure of 19,243, and, continuing its high weekly average, the total to January 16th. had reached Impressive Totals. —The details of the Dominion placements to Saturday last are: Permanent 10,656, casual 5499, temporary 6034, and it is interesting to compare them with the official figures showing the decrease in the total number of men wholly or partly dependant upon the Employment Promotion Fund during October, November and December last year. The decrease in the four-weekly ended October 24th. was 3279, for a similar period to November 21st. the reduction was 3799, and during the four weeks to December 19th. a further decrease ot 5269 was recorded. Effect on Unemployment Totals.— Those figures show that during the twelve weeks the actual decrease in the number of registered unemployed amounted to 10,347, of which total 9450 had been in receipt of relief either by way of scheme 5 work or sustenance. It is definitely demonstrable that the placement service found jobs for 5741 of those men in the periods mentioned, and it is also claimed that the service was responsible for the decrease of 897 representing the difference between the aggregate decrease in the number of registered unemployed and the total (9450) of those actually in receipt of rationed relief work or sustenance. Service to the Community.—Although it is not claimed that the placi n g of men in temporary or casual positions materially contributes to the solution of the unemployment difficulty, it is a fact that a good number of men so placed have had their terms of employment considerably extended or made permanent. A further point for consideration is that the finding of even casual and temporary private jobs for 11,533 men is a distinct contribution to the material well-being of themselves and their families, as well as a factor in the creation of additional employment, because of the consequential wages expenditure, and an undoubted aid to Dominion rehabilitation. There is, of course, no necessity to stress the very substantial Tesults due to finding permanent full-time standard-rate jobs for 10,656 men. These alone, it is claimed, provide ample justification for the inauguration of the placement service, and its weekly progress warrants the belief that eventually it will become the only publicly-recognised Dominion clearing-house for all classes of labour. It is as well here to explain that the published placement figures do not include a very large number of men for whom the service has found employment with various Government departments —Public Works, Forestry, Railways, etc. The fact that the qualifications of all men supplied have the endorsement of officers of the service has simplified the staffing problems of these important State departments.