FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 34, 4 November 1937, Page 8

FARM LABOUR SHORTAGE

J Minister Admits Difficulty GREATER USE OF SUBSIDY SCHEME URGED The position with regard to farm labour as at October 30 was set out in a statement issued yesterday by the Minister of Labour, Hon. 11. T. Armstrong. The statement disclosed that on the date mentioned there were 166 reported vacancies for farm workers. In 123 of those cases the farmers stipulated that only experienced men should be supplied, while 43 farmers were willing to accept inexperienced men. A Dominion-wide survey showed that only 20 experienced men were disengaged, but that 239 inexperienced men were available.

The Minister said that the plain fact had to be faced therefore that experienced farm workers were not available. This was a condition which employers in other occupations (building and metal trades, for instance) had to contend with, and they were taking steps to train new workers to overcome it.

“Seasonal scarcity of farm labour is not new this year nor in this country,” said the Minister. “It is a regular and sharp demand for seasonal assistance which has never been fully met in any country. I have before me reports of similar situations in Estonia and in Germany, two very dissimilar countries. Of my own knowledge, I am aware that the same problem is giving great trouble in Canada, where the number of unemployed is calculated in hundreds of thousands. AH of these, and other countries, where the difliculty exists, are endeavouring in their own ways to. devise means of overcoming it, but no country has gone so far as the present Government in New Zealand in that respect.” Subsidies were available on a generous scale to farmers willing to engage and train inexperienced workers. Men to whom the Labour Department could offer such a vacancy were obliged to accept it, and 339 had already been struck off the unemployment register for failure to accept farm employment. Eighty-six inexperienced workers had been placed under the subsidy scheme. Mr. Armstrong said that he recognised there was an element of politics in recent public references to the question, but he did not on that account disregard the fact that a real difficulty confronted many farmers in this country as in others, and he felt certain that much more could be done by the farmers themselves to relieve the position if they would utilise fully the labour exchange service and subsidy scheme available through the Labour Department. The more novices who were even partially trained this year, the more experienced men there would be available next season. He strongly urged farmers to consider this point, and to accept a larger quota of untrained subsidised workers in cases where it was clear that experienced men were simply not available.