BUILDING TRADES.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 196, 17 August 1920, Page 4

BUILDING TRADES.

Some important figures bearing on the ' pr-»ent and future supply of labour in ' the building trades are given in the ; annual report of the Labour Department. In the five chief building trades, carpentry and joinery, br':okl_yin£ : plastering, plumbing, and there has been a decline in the number of apprentice- since 1014. The total number of apprcnticee ill 1914 was 9->l. In Apiiii, 16.19, it should have been _8_ on a population basks, but it was only -SO. In carpentry and joinery the. numbers fell from 3!)1 to 245, in plumbing and tinsmithing from 421 to 317, and in painting from 94 to*Sl. The number of bricklayers' apprentices in 100.4 was only lfi. and last year it was 13. In view of the shortage of houses, this decline is serious. At the same time there has been a significant increase in apprenticeship in some other trades. Cycle and nutor engineering, for example, employed last year ISS apprentices to 18(5 in IP-14. Electrical engineering went up from MT ta 294. Boys who would formerly have gone into the building trades have been attracted by other callings. How far wages, conditions, and opportunities of gettin.c on have operated to turn tbcm in tifese directions might be hard to _ay, but no doubt the fact that i=ome build-' ing trades have a greater amount of' broken time than these others, ha? been 1 a considerable influence. If apprenticeship figures for the present day do not show an improvement on thctse of April, 1019. it would seem to be tile duty of both the employers and the unions to consider the whole question, including the making of conditions more attriiL--uve - ; j