POPULAR TRADES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 107, 7 May 1943, Page 2

POPULAR TRADES

ENGINEERING IN LEAD

CAREERS FOR YOUTHS

"The problem of a boy's future, always a puzzling one, is more difficult than ever at the present time," said Mr. H. G. Dorrington, vocational guidance officer, in an interview this morning. "With the problems of rehabilitation already looming large in the public mind, questions may naturally be asked regarding the future possibilities for boys." The engineering trades, easily, the most popular of manual occupations among boys, monopolised one in every four registered as apprentices, said Mr. Dorrington. If other allied trades, such as boilermaking, motor engineering and tinsmithing, were included the number covered 40 per cent of bovs training as skilled workmen in the Auckland district. Apprentices in carpentry and joinery, coachbuilding and cabinetmaking represented only a little more than 20 per cent of the total, he continued. If bricklaying, painting, plastering and plumbing were included, the percentage was very little higher, as very few boys could be absorbed in this type of work at present. If primary production was fostered in the post-war economy, as it seemed likely to be, then there should be excellent opportunities m the future for boys in those industries. "There are several obvious reasons for the present decrease in the number of apprentices in the wood trades," said Mr. Dorrington. Parents and boys are of the opinion that] less skill is required 5n the learning of such trades in these days of massproduction and probable development of prefabrication. The war, of course, upset the equilibrium of quotas, and employers cannot apprentice boys where they . normally would. With the rush of work resulting from huge Government building programmes, there is little time available for the teaching of boys, and unskilled workers can do the work required in less time than boys.

"Another trend is that the ratio of unskilled to skilled workers is rapidly increasing. This is natural under machine methods of production. The ratio will continue to increase in most occupations. Large numbers of boys may find themselves crowded out from skilled work and must be prepared to take their place in the large range of unskilled vocations."

The Auckland Youths' Farm Settlement Scheme, said Mr. Dorrington deserved more public approbation. If such a scheme was made Dominion-wide, every boy of promise and initiative could hope to become an independent farmer at an early age, and the economic problem in agriculture would disappear. The development of such things as the radio, the country library service and the W.E.A. helped materially to reduce the isolation of the country. Everything must be done to encourage the right type of youth to enter some branch of agriculture. Primary production must increase if the Dominion population was to be increased by a future immigration policy. The marKed decrease in the number of youths offering for farm work must therefore be halted. This could only be done by providing boys with privileges and prospects at least equal to those enjoyed by their comrades who worked in city industries.