Labour Dept moving today

Press, 14 August 1976, Page 1

Labour Dept moving today

The degrading business of standing at a counter at the Department of Labour and being interviewed for a job within earshot of other people has ended.

From Monday, there will be adequate provision for every job seeker to be interviewed in private at the Department. It is spending the weekend moving from the premises it occupied in Manchester Street for nearly 30 years to new accommodation in the Housing Corporation building in the Square. The department’s 17 employment staff, assisted by contractors, were working late last night and will go all day today, and tomorrow if necessary, to complete the move. The department’s chief employment officer in Christchurch (Mr P. M. Adds) said the new premises would be a vast improvement. “We now have eight

offices where our clients can have the privacy to which they are entitled,” he said.

Mr Adds believed that the previous premises probably discouraged people from coming in to discuss their employment problems. He referred to those occupying skilled jobs who were interested in moving on to something else to enjoy greater job satisfaction.

“We now have these rooms where people can sit down and have indepth interviews which may help to place them in

gainful employment,” he said. The opening of the new employment office in Christchurch coincides with the beginning of more specialised employment services which will cater not only for the needs of the able but also for the needs of people limited by various kinds of disabilities and for people returning to the work force. The service will be catering for school leavers, elderly people wanting to go back to work, mothers rejoining the work force, former inmates of prisons and psychiatric hospitals, as well as physically and mentally handicapped people.

The move to new premises, said Mr Adds, had already had a great stimulating effect on the morale of the staff, who looked forward to being able to do their work in an atmosnhere of dignity and privacy;