TRADE TRAINING OF SOLDIERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27011, 10 April 1953, Page 6

TRADE TRAINING OF SOLDIERS

AUCKLAND CENTRE CLOSED MORE THAN ISOO MEN ASSISTED (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 9. The last 16 carpentry trainees have graduated from the Rehabilitation Department’s trade training centre in Auckland. K Force men and other former servicemen still wanting assistance in learning a trade will henceforth depend on the department’s scheme for subsidised training with private employers. In about 11$ years, the Auckland centre has trained more than. 1600 carpenters, painters and paperhangers, bricklayers, and plasterers. More than 730 State houses were built from the ground up by trainees under this “work-while-you-learn” plan.

Apart from New Zealanders, training was provided for 26 former servicemen from other Commonwealth forces. At the height of the scheme, a hostel capable of accommodating 464 persons was run in conjunction with the centre.

Today, a number of contractors are employing former trainees as leading hands and key men in their organisations. Departmental officers readily admit that the success of the scheme has in no small measure resulted from the co-operation of private employers and union officials. Trade training proved attractive to pre-war clerks and other indoor workers, who decided during the Second World War to change their civilian occupations. Many trainees were married men, and their average age was about 30. At the outset of the scheme they were paid £5 5s a week for the first four months of workshop training, £5 7s 6d for the rest of the first year, and thereafter went on to award rates. When the centre closed, the starting wage had risen to £7 17s 2d.