A JOB-FINDING SCHEME

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 183, 1 May 1936, Page 10

A JOB-FINDING SCHEME

With the idea of obtaining a vocational analysis of registered unemployed men, and of other men who desire assistance in obtaining private employment, and then inaugurating what in effect will be a system of employment exchanges throughout the country, designed to guide unemployed persons into available jobs suited to their capacities, the Labour Department has drafted a new scheme. Actual.y. it is an old scheme—that of the pre-depression State employment bureaux —revived, revised and extended to undertake nationally the finding of jobs for those who want them, and the finding of men for jobs that are vacant. One of the most important extensions is that the department proposes to investigate and to vouch for the credentials of its clients. When testimonials and other statements submitted by an applicant for work “have been verified satisfactorily,” the department will issue an employment certificate indicating that as far as inquiries show, the applicant has acquired the degree of competency and character which fits him for employment in the occupation specified. It is hoped that after a little experience employers will regard this certificate as “a standard of employment suitability” which will render further inquiries unnecessary, thus avoiding loss of time, inconvenience and expense in obtaining corroborative information. The assumption of a responsibility of this kind must obviously involve a great deal of labour. Also, the co-operation of both those who seek work and those who employ labour is essential. In a period of abnormal unemployment many lose their jobs through no lack of capacity, but simply because there is no work for them to do. On the. other hand there is at all times a class the members of which will find .it extremely difficult to qualify for an employment certificate. The cfepartment’s investigations should give it a set of tabulated dossiers of human efficients whose enforced idleness is an economic loss to the State, and of inefficients whose past has been unsatisfactory and whose future is a problem. It may be possible to make a vocational analysis of the former that will be of value, but those in the latter class, if we are to-judge by past experience, will remain more or less of a charge upon the' State. The department no doubt recognises that this difficulty must necessarily restrict the scope of its enterprise, but it is left nevertheless with a sufficient margin of possibilities to justify it in going ahead with the idea and claiming the co-operation of employers.