Commissioner Says No Youths Are Unemployed

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30399, 25 March 1964, Page 14

Commissioner Says No Youths Are Unemployed

New Zealand had no unemployed youths but perhaps not all last year’s schoolleavers had secured their first choice of occupation, said the Commissioner of Apprenticeship (Mr R. C. Thornton) in Christchurch this week. The more attractive trades, he said, were full up. Mr Thornton said that it seemed, from general reports, that there would be an increase in the number of youths going into apprenticeship. The figures would probably be available early in April. There were about 23,000 male school-leavers at the end of last year, he said. The figure would be about the same this year. Nearly 30 per cent of these would be going into skilled trades. Mr Thornton said some New Zealand apprenticeship committees were “having a look at their apprenticeship orders.” These included the furniture trades and the painting industry. “They are considering the possibilities of giving shorter terms of contract,” he said. Mr Thornton said an advisory committee was looking at all aspects of technical train-

ing of apprentices in the electrical industry. The purpose of Mr Thornton’s Christchurch visit is to attend a meeting of the New Zealand Photo Engraving Trades apprenticeship committee. He said the committee would discuss correspondence school studies and technical education block courses for apprentices.

“The block courses were full-time courses of periods of up to three weeks through a technical institute," Mr Thornton said. The recognition of technical education courses would give the South Island a benefit by technical education that it did not have at the moment. The photo-engraving industry was a most complicated industry and he thought there was a need for such courses on a national basis. Auckland and Wellington had evening classes on a voluntary basis. “If the New Zealand committee does direct these apprentices to any particular school the Department of Labour meets their travel with a free traveller’s war* rant, and in some cases subsidises board,” Mr Thornton said.