Hotel Staff Imported

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32145, 14 November 1969, Page 2

Hotel Staff Imported

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) SYDNEY, Nov. 13. An Australian girl hired in Brisbane on Monday afternoon will be working in a Wellington hotel today. She is one of 83 Queensland women recruited in the past two weeks to plug staff gaps in New Zealand hotels. They will work as waitresses, housemaids and pantrymaids under a scheme run by the Hotel Association ! of New Zealand. “Without these girls we would have had serious staff shortages, particularly over the Christmas-New . Year period," the association’s secretary (Mrs Ayleen L. Beck), said in Sydney yesterday. “We can’t get enough

New Zealand girls to fill the available jobs.” Mrs Beck will return to Wellington today after her successful recruiting trip in Brisbane. In the last two years she has hired 896 girls to work in New Zealand. “I began in Brisbane and have not had to go elsewhere in Australia,” she said. “1 i can get all the staff we need , by making a couple of trips to Brisbane each year. “The Queensland girls’ ; way of life is somewhat quieter than in Sydney and Melbourne, and they fit in well in New Zealand.” The association inserts ad- . vertisements in Brisbane ■ newspapers before and dur- • ing Mrs Beck’s periodic visits. • Prospective employees are i guaranteed work within a few . days of arrival and the oiit- . ward fare is refunded after 12 i months service.

Employment is on a fiveday, 40-hour week basis at a pay rate of $2O a week. Full board is provided and penal rates for week-end work are additional. All applicants are interviewed by Mrs Beck and must have their parents’ permission to travel to New Zealand. The minimum hiring age is 18. Mrs Beck said there was a hard core of New Zealand women manning New Zealand hotels but local recruitment was difficult. ‘“Before coming to Brisbane this time I made a fiveday trip to the South Island, going to Invercargill, Hokitika, Greymouth and Westport,” she said. “We ran half-page advertisements seeking staff. The total result was that I hired three girls.”