SOLVING A DOUBLE PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 301, 16 September 1936, Page 8

SOLVING A DOUBLE PROBLEM

As the result of a conference in Wellington representative of employing and trade union interests, there is a prospect that something may be done toward solving the double problem of finding satisfactory employment for youths and young men between the ages of 18 and 23, and augmenting the ratios of skilled tradesmen, of whom there is now an appreciable scarcity. The remedy suggested is some acceptable readjustment of the conditions of apprenticeship that will open the doors of the skilled trades to youths and young men of the age period mentioned. These have a claim on the community comparable with that of the young men who served in the Great War and lost thereby a valuable portion of their economic life. The depression deprived them of the opportunity of entering skilled trades at the approved age, and to meet their case some adjustment of the apprenticeship conditions of the kind suggested is but due. There should be no difficulty about it if the need is considered in that light.