Information On Employment

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25160, 16 April 1947, Page 6

Information On Employment

The Minister of Employment (Mr A. McLagan), in his proposal to set up a committee to make a close examination into the practical uses of information on employment, has made a very fair and reasonable offer to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation. His suggestion that the committee should consist of three or four members of the fed-

eration, officers of the National Employment Service and the Government Statistician is also a sensible and useful proposal. It should eni sure the co-operation of the manuI facturers in a useful investigation, especially since the Minister is prepared to recommend for the Government’s favourable consideration any findings of the committee making suggestions for amendments or alterations in the collection of the information. Apart from the somewhat tedious work involved in making employment returns, it is difficult to account for opposition by manufacturers to the furnishing of information about employment in their industries, so long as it does not involve the collection and assembling of detail which is obviously of no value to anyone. It is of first-class importance to the country to know how many persons are employed in various industries and in what capacity, whether their work is full time or part time, efficient and economic, and whether they could be more usefully employed in other industries if the industry in which they are engaged is not giving full and useful service to the community. Whether the committee’s investigations would carry the inquiry so far, or whether a body so constituted would be the right one to make it may be questionable. It is a fair assumption, however, that many small and comparatively unimportant industries which are able to make a reasonable profit and perform a fairly useful community service when times are unusually prosperous would probably be unable to do so in less favourable circumstances. What is important for purposes of this inquiry is to know-whether such industries could, in adverse times, continue to employ the same number of workers in useful occupation and what the prospects would be for any employee entering the industry. It should be possible, without prying into the private concerns of the employers, to make some deductions of the kind from the information which the Employment Information Regulations already require employers to submit. Careful examination of this information by an expert body should disclose much useful data which could be used valuably in surveys of industrial trends, which could be made available to interested employers and be of immense value to labour placement and vocational guidance services.