Redundancy Of Women Predicted

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30897, 2 November 1965, Page 1

Redundancy Of Women Predicted

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Nov. 1. Women in countries such as Canada and the United States will soon be eliminated from office work, according to Mr M. A. Pierotti, a former Auckland man who is business manager of the 2500-strong City Hall Employees’ Association in Vancouver.

Making a two-week visit to Auckland, Mr Pierotti predicted a similar redundancy of working women in New Zealand after the change to the decimal system. “The decimal system is well suited to computer work," he said today.

Computers and other office machines would revolutionise office structure, he said. There would be no centre section or middle class of office workers. Routine and the top management jobs

would remain but they would be held by men only. “Why hire women?” he asked, “when machines will work an economical 20-hour day with no errors and increased efficiency.”

A computer society would also make it necessary for the school teaching system to be changed. “It will be more useful to train children how to design, operate or maintain a computer than how to do double-entry bookkeeping,” he said.

Mr Pierotti said many people in Canada aged between 30 and 40 were going back to school for training in new occupations involving office machinery.