IMPRESSIVE RECORD.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 340, 22 January 1937, Page 3

IMPRESSIVE RECORD.

Twenty-two Thousand Jobs Found For Unemployed. The State Placement Service return for its first week’s operations during the week ended May 30 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. 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 13, showed an increase of only 211, and the critics merely shrugged their shoulders and put the Placement Service out of their minds. At the end of September, four months after the commencement of the Service, the number of jobs found was 8,195, which exceeded by 769 those the previous week. Six weeks later the gross total had risen to 12,894, the number of placements for the week ended Novemlber 7 being 1,030. During the following six weeks to December 19 the aggregate had risen, by jumps of more than one thousand each week, to the surprising figure of 19,243, and, continuing its high weekly average, the total to January 16 had reached 22,189.

Impressive Totals, The details of the Dominion placements to Saturday last are: Permanent 10,656; casual 5,499; temporary 6,034; and it is interesting to compare them with the official figures showing the decrease in the total number of men wholly or partly dependent upon the Employment Promotion Fund during October, November and December last year. The decrease in the four-weekly peried ended October 24 was 3,279, for a similar period to November 21 the reduction was 3,799, and during the four weeks to December 19 a further decrease of 3,269 was recorded. Effect on Unemployment Total s-.i . Those figures show that during the 12 weeks the actual decrease in the number of registered unemployed amounted to 10,347, of which total 9,450 had been in receipt of relief either by way of scheme 5 w.ork or sustenance. It is definitely demonstrable that the Placement Service found jobs for 5,741 of those men in the periods mentioned, and it is also claimed that the Service was responsible for the decrease of 897 repre senting the difference between the aggregate decrease in the number of registered unemployed and the total (9,450) of those actually in receipt of rationed relief work or • sustenance.