THE PROBLEM OF SKILLED WORK

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12606, 17 November 1926, Page 6

THE PROBLEM OF SKILLED WORK

Are we in danger of dependence on importation lor the skilled workers in our industries? If so, the danger is serious. It is not in the public interest for the greater bulk of the boys leaving school to be condemned to unskilled employment. Governments, Parliaments, and many institutions interested in the welfare of the young have long felt the urge of the problem, and many solutions have been offered. The present stage of the agitation was hopefully considered as final. On that score, however, there'is considerable disappointment, ; ' - , . How great and far-reaching that disappointment is, Mr Rowley, the head of the Labour Department, made clear yesterday in an address to the Rotary Club, appealing to that body to join in a widespread endeavour to find a refuge from the danger of a bar of skilled work against the increasing numbers of the country’s youth. When the last Apprentice Act had bean passed as the hopedfor final settlement of this grave probletrq the Labour Department got systematically busy finding out from parents and guardians what were their.views and the views of .fheir young people about careers of skilled work- for-the. latter. The .response, .was, Jargft,, -ZtlJ concerned regarded the new Act as the infallible key to the gate to the Promised Land. The department also got busy with the employers of labour. But the response was almost nil. The disappointment of the young people of the Dominion has been very large. This more especially as the statistics of unemployment snow that the stress of unemployment falls chiefly; in fact, almost entirely, on unskilled labour. Mr Rowley described in instructive detail what the department thought, after careful inquiries, to be the causes of this lamentable failure,. ■ - ,■' Chief among these'afe'eonffietition, which tends to keep down the expense of skilled trading, and many workings of the human equation. It was made clear, of course, that factories, workshops, and building businesses are neither charitable nor patriotic institutions, and this without any reflection whatever on the employers. It has been said that the irksome conditions imposed on apprenticeship formed one main pause of the failure, but statistics showed that the proportion of employed youth was too small to justify tffat assertion. . , The necessity fpr conserving the public interest remains as strong as ever. In fact, the failure of the carefully-prepared remedy has greatly increased that necessity. The department, to its credit, has not given up hope of a solution. Neither have the many institutions Which devote themselves to boy welfare. Mr Rowley s add.ress ended with a request to the Rotary Club, whose activities have long included care for boy welfare, to join with these institutions in a great comprehensive effort to find a remedy. It is a strong attempt to enlist the best brains, and the best goodwill, and the best experience of the Dominion to find a solution to this gravely serious problem of skilled work for the youth of the Dominion, lifting them above the .horizon that bounds the view of hewers of wood and drawers of water.