INDUSTRIAL WORKERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26637, 6 December 1947, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS

MIGRANTS FROM BRITAIN ADDITIONAL CATEGORIES APPROVED P.A. * WELLINGTON, Dec. 5. W[ore than 3000 workers from the United Kingdom should arrive in New Zealand during the next 12 months, according to a statement by the Minister of Immigration, Mr McLagatfti to-day. He said that, acting on the recommendation of the Immigration Advisory Council, it has been decided to approve the inclusion of additional categories of workers in the assisted passage scheme. It is also intended to increase the quotas for some of the categories already approved.

One of the categories for which a limited qouta will now be included in the immigration scheme, said Mr McLagan, will be young single workers for farms. Repeated representations by Federated Farmers and also by some individual farmers had shown that there were vacancies in certain farming districts which required filling and which could not be readily filled from the existing labour force. After close consultation between the Department of Labour and Employment, Federated Farmers of New Zealand, and the New Zealand Workers’ Union, full agreement was reached on a limited scheme which the Government has now decided to approve, and to this end the immigration branch in London has been authorised to include in immigration drafts a total of up to 50 single men between the ages of 20 and 30 years for farm work.

The Y.M.C.A. in England had been operating a farm training scheme, continued Mr McLagan, and provided a sufficient number was available it had been decided, on the recommendation of the Immigration Advisory Council, to invite applications from up to 50 youths aged 17 to 21 years who received not less than one years training under the Y.M.C.A. scheme. Any youths brought out under this proposal would be additional to the 50 farm workers aged 20 to 30 years to whom he had already referred. Mr. McLagan added that the Immigration Advisory Council had also been giving consideration to widening the industrial categories in other directions and to increasing the quotas for some, of the categories already included in the immigration scheme, and the council’s recommendations had been approved by the Government. Increases included additional female workers for the footwear industry, woollen mills, men’s clothing manufacture, the printing trade, and other types of factory employment. The quotas for all male industrial categories had been increased and new categories had been added among which would be 400 tradesmen for employment on hydro-electric development schemes. In the engineering industry special emphasis would be placed on floor moulders and boilermakers, and the substantial quota now allotted would prove of great relief to the industry.