Apprenticeship

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 18 September 1937, Page 14

Apprenticeship

It must be hoped that the recent increase in the number of apprenticeship contracts reported by the Acting-Minister for Labour, the Hon. P. C. Webb, will not lead the Government into the belief that there is no longer an apprenticeship problem. As the Minister himself admits, the supply of apprentices is still inadequate in relation to the demand for skilled labour. Moreover, the experience of the last few years has shown conclusively that the apprenticeship system established in 1923 has at least two serious defects. The first is that the number of contracts falls off heavily in times of economic depression, with the result that when recovery begins there is an immediate shortage of skilled labour. The second is that the training which the system provides is not sufficiently thorough and varied. Many of those who complete apprenticeships are craftsmen in name only. Indeed, it seems fairly certain that in New Zealand the necessary supply of skilled workers cannot be maintained unless the training given by apprenticeship is supplemented by technical instruction in the schools, and technical instruction of a type for which there is at present no provision. If, as seems likely, New Zealand is shortly compelled to force the development of secondary production, the problem will become an urgent one, since the greatest limiting factor will be the shortage of skilled labour. The Government, which in this matter is under the domination of the trades unions, seems to have set its face against the importation of craftsmen from abroad, so that the only way out of the difficulty is a substantial improvement in the facilities for industrial training.