Plan Soon For Employment

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31677, 13 May 1968, Page 14

Plan Soon For Employment

(N Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 12. Local bodies in areas hard hit by unemployment would suggest in the next few days a scheme for possible Government subsidy, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said in Auckland yesterday.

Mr Holyoake said the Labour Department had asked local bodies in areas of aggravated unemployment Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin —to evolve working - clearing schemes which the Government could subsidise. The Secretary of Labour (Mr N. Woods) had told the Cabinet last Monday that he expected the local body suggestions to be available next Mr Holyoake said the subsidy schemes for local bodies in high unemployment areas might later be expanded to other areas. Mr Holyoake was in Auckland today attending the annual meeting of the Auckland

division of the National Party. The meeting proceedings were closed to the newspapers.

The district superintendent of the Labour Department (Mr N. Pelvin) said the jobs, such as tree planting and park work, would be of a high labour content. “They would be the sort of tasks that would take the maximum number of workers,” he said. The work involved would not have to include schemes normally carried out by local authorities’ employees.