SHORTAGE OF SKILLED MEN.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 August 1938, Page 4

SHORTAGE OF SKILLED MEN.

QNLY perhaps the authorities controlling competing gas or other undertakings will find any ground for comfort, in the state of affairs reported at yesterday’s meeting of the Wairarapa Power Board-—a shortage of skilled workers in consequence of which the board is from ten weeks to three months in arrears with installation work throughout its district. As the Secretary-Manager (Mr G. Brown) observed, this is a very serious state of affairs. Moreover, it is not confined to the Wairarapa. It was stated in the course of discussion that all boards were in the»same position and that there were insufficient tradesmen in the Dominion to cope with the work offering. Similar conditions are reported from time to time in other skilled occupations. The shortage is not of man-power, for the Dominion is still maintaining a considerable number of men on sustenance or in subsidised work of one kind and another, but of trained and skilled men. The experience of the Wairarapa Power Board merely sets some additional emphasis on needs that were already apparent. It is more than time to institute a national survey in this country with a view to determining how the members of its working- population may be trained and employed with the greatest advantage to themselves as individuals and to the community. At present we are dealing with these problems only fragmentarily and in a rather disjointed fashion.