MAXIMUM EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1942, Page 4

MAXIMUM EFFORT

CANADA MOBILISING HER MANPOWER. WOMEN IN WAR INDUSTRY. OTTAWA, March 24. Canada is mobilising her manpower for maximum effort in the war. In the Canadian House of' Commons today the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, announced a comprehensive Government scheme of national selective service which, among other provisions, plans to bring an increasing number of women into the war industry; which raises the age for compulsory military service from 24 to 30; which stabilises employment in agriculture; which establishes restricted occupations in which fit male persons of military age, except within certain specified limits, may not enter into employment. Measures to bring women into industries include:—(l) Recruiting campaigns planned and publicised to attract women into needed work; (2) provision of appropriate and adequate facilities for interviewing women applicants and giving them advice and direction; (3) establishment of competent job information and placement services specialising in female labour; (4) advances where necessary to meet transportation costs in getting women workers to places where work is available; (5) provision of hostels and other satisfactory housing arrangements; (6) provision of nurseries and other means for caring for children; (7) provision where needed of medical and recreational facilities; (8) provision in industry as well as under direct governmental auspices of training programmes specifically designed for women; (9) pressure upon employers who may be reluctant to engage female labour; (10) changes in Civil Service and institutional restrictions on the employment of female, and particularly married female labour. The Prime Minister also announced an extended programme of reconditioning men to fit them physically for military service. The age limit for compulsory military service is raised from 24 to 30.