Shortage Of Men For “Hard Yakker”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30555, 25 September 1964, Page 6

Shortage Of Men For “Hard Yakker”

There was still a shortage of men to do the “hard yakker,” Mr B. J. Drake told the Canterbury Progress League. More men were wanted for unskilled tasks and heavy labouring jobs, he said. Mr Drake was commenting on a report showing the allocation of assisted immigrants to Auckland, Welling-ton-Hutt Valley and Christchurch during the last 11 years. During this period, Christchurch received only 2679 immigrants under contract, compared with Auckland’s 5331 and 10,038 in the Wellington-Hutt Valley area. The public relations officer (Mr C. N. Todd) said that Wellington-Hutt Valley had only 23 per cent, of the male labour force in 1960-61, yet received 56 per cent of the immigrants. Christchurch’s percentage of the labour force was 24 per cent with only 15 per cent of the immigrants. The chairman (Mr H. H. Deans) said the waiting list for farm labour was bigger now than it had ever been. This seemed a pity when one heard of people being unemployed in overseas countries. Mr B. W. Smallbone said his firm in Ashburton had advertised for technical staff recently and had received 120 applications. Describing the position of assisted immigrants as a political football, Mr B. R. Homersham said governments were afraid that the standard

of living could be watered down by bringing too many people into the country. There was also a fear that it could cause a drain on overseas funds, he said. The league decided to ask the Chamber of Commerce to carry out further investigations in the form of a survey.