BRITISH LABOUR SHORTAGE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27565, 24 January 1955, Page 11

BRITISH LABOUR SHORTAGE

NEED FOR OVERSEAS GRADUATES (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, January 22. ■While New Zealand is seeking in Britain engineers and other experienced men for its public works and railway departments, British industry is itself so short that it is advertising on the Continent for science and engineering graduates. The “Manchester Guardian” says that the English Electric Company, one of the largest industrial firms in Britain, has had to look abroad because it cannot recruit senior technical staff in Britain. “Advertisements are appearing in Rome newspapers offering numerous posts in the company’s works at Stafford to qualified Italian engineers and electrical engineers. University graduates are preferred.

“This appeal is only one among several that the English Electric Company has made recently on the Continent. Last year posts were advertised in France, Switzerland and Italy. The posts advertised in Italy are for men aged between 25 and 45 who are offered salaries ranging from £7OO to £l2OO annually. “A member of the company said that like many other British firms it badly needed more university trained men. At the moment 4 It was recruiting about 160 to 200 graduates annually, a quarter of them from overseas but there was still a shortage. They could probably do with another 100 annually.”