SHORTAGE OF LABOUR

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25282, 6 September 1947, Page 8

SHORTAGE OF LABOUR

N.Z. CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

FORCE NOW LOWEST FOR MANY YEARS

The labour force available to the construction industry in New Zealand, on a basis proportionate to population, is lower than it has been at any other time during this century. The Commissioner of Works (Mr E. R. McKillop) says in his annual report that in normal times approximately 7$ per cent, of the employed population is engaged in the construction industry. The census figures for 1945 show that 700,000 persons were employed. which would mean that 52,500 'should now be employed in the construction industry, whereas only 36,000 can safely be assumed to be available this year. Mr McKillop says that in 1939, when 670,000 people were fully employed, 47,000 were available to the construction industry, of which 28,500 were employed on Government and Statesubsidised works, and 18,500 on work carried out for private enterprise. These figures compare with 18,000 in each of the corresponding fields for 1947-48. Thus the reduction in manpower available to the construction industry is entirely within the fields of Government and local authority works, which indicates that some 10,000 workers have been attracted to other industries or occupations or are not otherwise availably. . According to Mr McKillop, material resources are probably lower in relation to demand than they have been during the last 25 years. Stocks have long been exhausted by war-time construction, and those industries, both within the Dominion and overseas, which supply material, plant, and tools for works are still functioning under serious difficulties, the cumulative effect of which Is still to keep supplies at an inadequate level. While to-day the most critical limitation is material, it appears that a relatively small improvement in tins field would make labour, particularly skilled labour, the critical factor.