MANPOWER AND REHABILITATION

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23915, 6 April 1943, Page 6

MANPOWER AND REHABILITATION

Sir,—lt would be interesting to have an answer to the following questions. How many discharged servicemen have been found permanent positions at a weekly wage of £5 10s or more? How many discharged servicemen are on the books of the rehabilitation office, for whom positions cannot be found? (I do not mean positions of a temporary nature.) I believe that discharged men have been reporting to the rehabilitation office for weeks and no positions have been offering. Further, I understand that these men often have to wait the best part of a day to secure an interview, though this is not the fault of the officers in charge. At present the system seems to be almost a revival of the procedure which obtained in the unemployment rooms during the depression.—Yours, etc., INSTATE. March 29, 1943. [When this letter was referred to the National Service Department it was stated that work could be found for every fit returned serviceman. The weekly wage of £5 10s or more mentioned by “Instate” was fairly high—the average was £s—and by stipulating this the correspondent was tying the reply down to the higher amounts. The system by which a man was called in for interview was that a notice was sent to him, and if he was out of town or did not come on the day fixed, he would find that arrangements had been made to interview other men, and he would have to take his turn behind them. It was not correct that discharged men had been reporting to the rehabilitation office for weeks and no positions had been offering.]