SKILLED LABOUR SHORTAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1940, Page 6

SKILLED LABOUR SHORTAGE

EFFECT OF RESTRICTIONS ON APPRENTICESHIP. Shortage of skilled labour is proving the tightest bottle-neck in American industrial effort, an obstacle whose cause is discused by Mr Frank L. Perrin, an American journalist. From time to time, previous to the emergency caused by the threat of possible attempted invasion of the Americas, he writes, critical attention has been directed to the imposed policy of labour unions in restricting apprenticeships. This policy has been defended by labour leaders and accepted quite generally by the union labour membership, upon the theory that the fewer apprentices taught and trained the simpler would be the effort to dictate and impose higher and ever higher wage scales and terms governing overtime pay. Little thought has been given in labour circles, apparently ,to ,the need of American youths for more general training in the specialised trades and industries, or to the possibility that the time might come when the welfare, if not the safety, of all would depend upon preparedness to act quickly and capably in the country’s defence.