Meeting soon on unemployment

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 1

Meeting soon on unemployment

(By our industrial reporter)

A meeting to give urgent consideration to the Christchurch unemployment problem will be called by the Mayor (Mr N. G. Pickering) as soon as possible.

The Christchurch district, said Mr Pickering, already had more than one-fifth of New Zealand’s unemployed. If nothing was done, the number would increase greatly, as seasonal work ended.

After receiving a deputation from the Canterbury Trades Council yesterday, Mr Pickering agreed to call a meeting of North Canterbury members of Parliament and of representatives of the Canterbury Employers’ Association, the Canterbury Manufacturers* Association, and the trades council.

He hoped the meeting would be held early next week, he said last evening. Mr R. A. Hill, president of the trades council, said yesterday that the unions were particularly concerned by two aspects of the problem—that the unemployment rate was far higher in Christchurch than in any other area, and that it was still increasing.

STATISTICS Statistics taken out for “The Press” by the director of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association (Mr I. D. Howell) show the Christchurch unemployment rate to be double that of Dunedin and Hamilton, almost three times that of Auckland, and more than three times that of Wellington. Mr Howell’s figures show that the South Island, while employing only 27.7 per cent of the New Zealand work force, has 36.8 per cent of the country’s unemployed. The greater degree of unemployment in Christchurch appears to be due mainly to a combination of two factors. One is expressed in the old

saying that when the Canterbury farmer sneezes, Christchurch catches cold. Christchurch is more directly dependent on country earnings than most other large centres, and after several years of drought conditions, wool-oriented Canterbury farmers have had to draw in their purse-strings and postpone development. The other factor is the shortage of capital for industrial development. A large part of Christchurch manufacturing is geared to supplying and servicing equipment for

other manufacturers, and lack of national expansion hits Christchurch harder than many other industrial centres.

ACCOUNTANT’S VIEW In the view of a prominent accountant, Christchurch’s present unemployment pool is not excessive and depressed trading conditions will right themselves without any special Government measures being taken. His opinion is that some unemployment is necessary to reduce union militancy, inflation of wage rates, and absenteeism. This view, However, is opposed by many Christchurch employers. "When you get unemployed people back, they have lost something,” one employer said yesterday. “They have lost some of their will to work, and they are soured with the system. It is nice to have a quick source of labour, but in the long run it is not worth it.”

This employer, managing director of a large engineering firm, said he had foreseen a reducation of business, had chased orders hard earlier on, and in consequence was still very busy. Other firms, however, were not.

There was, he said, a marked fall in the expansion of industry, and although noone could be sure what would happen, he thought it likely that the trade and employment situation would worsen during the next two months unless corrctive action was taken. DISBURSEMENTS Disbursements to Canterbury farmers under the sheep retention scheme should help a little, he thought but against this would be a greater shortage of funds as taxes fell due. and an increased supply of labour as seasonal work ended.