SUCCESS ACHIEVED IN FIRST MONTH

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 221, 15 June 1936, Page 8

SUCCESS ACHIEVED IN FIRST MONTH

Employment For 500 Men

WORK FOR TRADESMEN UNDER NEW SCHEME

Over 500 men have been absorbed into employment in live weeks under the placement plan of the Labour Department. The placements represent casual ami permanent positions in almost equal numbers. The basic idea of the scheme is to obtain an occupational analysis of registered unemployed men and of all other men who desire help in getting hack to work. In view of the persistence of unemployment on a large scale for about six years, the task is a heavy one. The placement officers endeavour to place the square pegs in square holes, instead of hurrying an applicant into the first available job. The service is also organised to give the disengaged man trained iu one branch of industry which may be fully staffed, an opportunity of transferring to a less crowded area of activity, or even to a section of his town trade or occupation where the competition for available work is less marked. The activities of the placement officers are not wholly confined to their own districts. If they Dave on their lists of applicants the name of a capable tradesman for whom a position is not available, and the man has expressed his willingness to accept work at a distance, neighbouring placement, officers are immediately communicated with, and if there is a suitable vacancy the man is sent to fill it. The question of transport may then arise, and where it is necessary, such cost will be provided and an arrangement made for a refund in small weekly instalments. Strategic Psychology.

The machinery of the placement office is designed to minimise formality. An applicant for a position is taken to the placement officer's room, a piece of strategic psychology designed to place interviewer and interviewee on an equal basis of mutual understanding, the view of the officers in charge of the department being that if a public counter were to spread its broad and bare surface between the parties it would form a barrier to that confidential chat so essential in framing a correct estimate of the applicant’s capabilities. The applicant is asked to supply certain necessary particulars —age, conjugal condition, education and technical qualifications, previous employers and periods of service, main occupation, alternative occupation and a few minor details. The office then attempts to locate possible employers and put the applicant and the employer into touch with one another. Some cases are those of men with trade training who were thrown out of work through the depression and have since drifted from one labouring job to another, finding it difficult to get back to their old occupations because of the reluctance of employers to engage men who have been out of their specialised trades for long. The operations of the placement bureau frequently results in a man being offered a job on trial, with tools probably arranged for by the placement officer meantime.

In this way more than one capable tradesman, after drifting around from one “blind alley” job to another for over five years, is placed in profitable employment in his own trade within a day or so of his “last resource” application to the placement officer.