ACUTE SHORTAGE

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 416, 24 April 1937, Page 7

ACUTE SHORTAGE

JUVENILE LABOUR London’s Dilemma. An acute shortage of juvenile labour, in spite of the serious unemployment situation in many other parts of the country, is London’s latest dilemma. .While Welsh miners and ther children have been out of work for as much as 12 or 14 years, London offices, especially in the “city” proper, cannot find office boys, says an overseas exchange. No less than 25,000 “juvenile unemployed” have been moved from the distressed areas to London and the Midlands in the last two years, and still the demand exceeds the supply so far that one London labour exchange alone reports it could place 400 boys and girls immediately. Several factors combine to cause the shortage, according to the Labour Ministry. “The chief factor,” said an official “is growing prosperity throughout the London area. Another is-the growth of London, the development of new ‘satellite’ towns in the suburbs, and rapid building of new housing developments far from the business areas. “The result is that boys and girls living on the fringe of London cannot, in many cases, afford to pay the heavy travelling expenses from their homes to central London. Their wages would disappear in railway fares.” Another factor blamed is the sharp drop in the birth rate during 1920 and 1921. Children born during those years are just reaching the age when they would begin to go to work, and there are not enough of them to go around. More than 4C0.000 boys and girls between 14 and 17 are working in Greater London, in offices or factories, as apprentices in various trades or in domestic service or in shops. In central London there are 2424 vacancies on the labour exchange registers, with only 68 applicants registered. In the whole county of London there are 8162 vacancies registered for boys and girls, with only 1448 applicants, many of whom are not suitable for certain positions.