No Firm Job Inquiries

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32234, 28 February 1970, Page 12

No Firm Job Inquiries

The suggestion that New Zealand might be able to find employment for skilled workers laid off by the Boeing aircraft company had come from the New Zealand ConsulGeneral in San Francisco, and not from the company or from the American unions involved, the Labour Department’s director of employment and immigration (Mr K. Conveny) said yesterday.

Entry conditions posed no problems. Mr Conveny said. “If these are highly-skilled people and there is a demand for their services, no impediment would be placed in their way.”

The possibility of Government assistance for immigration had not been considered, he said.

j Late last year the subsidised immigration programme was extended to the United ; States. Under a new policy ! adopted this month, employers now have to meet only a quarter of the air fares for approved immigrants whom they have hired. Late last October the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association was informed, through the national federation, that ! American workers laid off ; through the cancellation of military contracts might be interested in coming to New ' Zealand. -i The New Zealand Consul--General in Los Angeles (Mr M. P. Chapman), said his office had been approached by some highly-skilled workers who were prepared to make financial sacrifices to bring up their children in a better environment.

The Canterbury association promptly wrote to the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Federation . saying that its members wbuld be very'“inter-’

ested in any applications. Nothing more has been heard. The acting Director of Civil Aviation (Mr I. Walters), doubts whether salaries offered in New Zealand would attract United States staff of the professional calibre and motivation of his present staff, the Press Association reports. Civil Aviation was the main employer of graduate aeronautical engineers in this country, he said. Although there were vacancies for graduate mechanical engineers with an aeronautical diploma equivalent to that of the British College of Aeronautics, Mr Walters doubted that the salaries offered would attract Americans “Air New Zealand and the Hamilton manufacturing firms which are producing aircraft for overseas markets could be interested,” he said, “but likewise may be inhibited by the salaries they 'can offer.”