TO INCREASE NUMBER OF APPRENTICES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 10

TO INCREASE NUMBER OF APPRENTICES

Legislation Next Year

SHORTAGE OF SKILLED TRADESMEN

Steps to increase the number of apprentices arc to be taken next year by the Minister of Labour, .Mr. Armstrong. He said in an interview yesterday that he hoped to introduce a Bill next session of Parliament consolidating the legislation relating to apprentices and providing for a number of amendments that were considered necessary. lie wanted to have his proposals considered by the Labour people and probably by the employers, too, because he was anxious to have something that was satisfactory to all parties.

During the past year or so, said Mr. Armstrong, the shortage of skilled tradesmen had been very noticeable, particularly in the building industry. Of 1509 adult apprentices since 1936 registered under the amendment to the Apprenticeship Act that year, 450 were building trade apprentices. Besides these apprentices a large percentage of ordinary apprentices were in the building trade. When the present Government came into office in 1935 there were about 3300 registered apprentices, but now there were somewhere about 9000. By the end of the present school term he hoped there would be more than 10,000. This was about the maximum number of apprentices there had ever been in New Zealand at any one time. It was considered that to meet the normal requirements of the Dominion there should be about 10,000 apprentices, but there was a lot of leeway to be made up.