“All Is Not GOLD..."

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 8

“All Is Not GOLD..."

Youth Surveys the Future

BEFORE parents decide what they are going to do with their boys and girls in the world o£ business, they must look further ahead than the provision of a mere job and explore the ultimate prospects in trades and professions. In this task the Education Department has helped but little. An elaborate pamphlet has been issued for the guidance of parents, but the essential factor—the number of opportunities offering—has been almpst completely ignored.

Though, the holidays have hardly begun, hoys and girls who have left regular schooling behind for ever are seeking positions in trades and professions. Many will retain their association with school by intermittent night study, or specialised courses detached from their old educational courses.

It is small comfort to parents to know that in order to train successfully for certain careers, their boys must possess a fertile imagination, resource and ingenuity, and that a mechanical bent is a distinct advantage. The boy or girl might possess every one of these, together with the added qualifications of a good personality, administrative ability, business acumen and a capacity for controlling men. But if there is not a job for him, his special abilities are wasted on the wharf or in the store of a city warehouseman. The boy himself will be thrilled to read the departmental advice that in agricultural industries the only qualifications required for success are sound common sense, industry and thrift. He is told that in difficult times the farmer is in a better position than is the town dweller, sinc£ he is able to produce for himself many of the necessities of life, and in the last analysis it is the peasant population of a country that best survives the stress of wars and revolutions. IN THE PROFESSIONS

As the boy is studying for a career and not preparing for a war or a revolution, he will read on, to find that “if he has saved as much as possible while working for others (on the farm, that is) he will probably be in as good a position to set up on his own account as if he had entered any other occupation.” Wages, he is informed, are about 15s a week with keep, rising to about £1 10s as experience is gained. Out of this princely sum, the potential landowner is to save enough to buy himself a farm.

The fact that there are over 3,700 male and 1,300 female accountants in New Zealand has a steadying effect when the young student thinks of accountancy in which it is possible to rise to £650 a year. Mention of £1,500 a year as the top rate for journalists might attract him until he

discovers that the men in New Zealand who are receiving this figure as a journalistic salary are probably numbered on the fingers of both hands. They begin at £1 15s a week.

The door of the professions is wide open to nurses, teachers and musicians, the department informs the ambitious child. Teaching and nursing certainly do provide some opportunity for girls, and are the most popular among position-seekers; but music can hardly be classed today as among the highly lucrative practices if the situation in Auckland is to be accepted as a criterion for the whole Dominion. Nearly 40 are out of work. OUTLOOK IN TRADES Among the trades the prospective industrialist is told in the majority of instances that his chances for advancement are “good—may go into business on own account.” In bakering, for example, he is informed that the possibility of regular employment is good. (There is a perpetual list of unemployed on the Auckland Bakers’ Union.) He is told that his chances as a boilermaker are fair to good, but Mr. R. P. Barter, secretary of the boilermakers, says there are too many workers in the trade already. Painters are assured by the department of fair to good prospects of regular employment. The unemployment books in Auckland have not been clear of them for over 18 months. Advice in other trades is similarly given. It is comprehensive and valuable for normal times. For existing conditions it provides no more than a superficial and in some directions an unintentionally misleading guide. Those who are watching the labour market and seeking a solution for the boy and girl labour problems believe that educational guides of this nature should contain a resume of the economic position in each trade, and the definite prospect for employment, leaving academic particulars if necessary to be sought by the intending apprentice. As it is, the department gives a bright theoretical picture, necessarily without practical guidance for the potential wage-earner. For this information parents are charged one shilling.

L.J C.