TRADE TRAINING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1942, Page 3

TRADE TRAINING

GOOD FOUNDATION LAID FOR FUTURE OPERATIONS. PLANS OF THE HOUSING DEPARTMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, September 1. The. Housing Department at present had 20.000 applications for houses a demand that could not be met undqi present circumstances, said the Mimster of Labour, Mr Webb, at the opening of the No. 3 Carpentry framing School in Auckland yesterday. FnoU“ sands of young men lost opportunities for learning trades during the depression years and many of them were now on active service. Training schools such as those at Miramar, Petone and Auckland would be the foundation oi future training operations. About 50 returned soldiers were already members of the classes and were, doing excellent work. Over 150 previously unskilled men had gone through thentraining and the majority were now engaged in building houses for the Housing Department. The Housing Department, continued Mr Webb, needed 8000 to 9000 men for the duration of the war in the buildino, industry and had planned work in the first post-war year to employ 21,009 men. and in the following two years 24 000 men. to build 12,000 houses in the first year alter the war, and 14 - 000 in each of the second and thiicl years. He was confident, after seeing the work done by trainees from lhe schools, that the department could train the men required to tackle teat gigantic job. The experiment of,graining unskilled men, said the Ministei, had been an unqualified success.