STILL ACUTE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26616, 12 November 1947, Page 4

STILL ACUTE

LABOUR POSITION SHORTAGE OF JUVENILES INCREASED MECHANISATION FORECAST The close of the school year next month will mean that new faces will be seen behind counters, the fingers of new juniors will operate typewriters in city offices, and manufacturing concerns will welcome additional apprentices—but in spite of the numbers of boys and girls who will be entering the world of business and commerce, there will still be more vacancies than applicants. The shortage of juvenile labour *is still acute, and there appears to be no immediate prospect of relief. At the moment it appears that offices are experiencing the greatest degree of difficulty in obtaining employees, although industry also has its problems. The theory was advanced to the Daily Times yesterday by the head of an office staff that preference for jobs was something which goes in cycles. Thus, it is not the fashion at the moment for girls and boys to seek employment in offices, whereas 10 years ago there was little difficulty in maintaining a full staff. “Boys seem to want to take up a trade, and girls do not think that being a shorthand-typist is themost congenial employment,” he said. The shortage of female labour is rather more acute than the scarcity of juvenile male labour. Increased numbers of marriages are responsible for this, and thefe is little likelihood of an improvement. Business men are now approaching the stage where they are prepared to consider the labour shortage a normal matter, and the gradual introduction of mechanisation on a larger scale than ever before is foreseen in large offices. On the industrial side, firms are already experimenting with “no apprentices schemes and training unskilled men to perform skilled tasks. Indications are that, in most cases children leaving school this year will not be lured from the particular job they have in mind by the prospect of higher wages elsewhere. As an instance of this attitude mav be quoted the fact that it is not easy, generally, to obtain sufficient suitable girls to train as school teachers, although the pay offered is generous, while the shortage of nurses, whose pay is not nearly so good, is much less acute than it used to be. Similarly, show a tendency /to avoid blind alley ” employment with rates of pay well above those available, to them as first-year apprentices.