TELEGRAMS. UNSKILLED LABOUR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 45, 22 February 1908, Page 9

TELEGRAMS. UNSKILLED LABOUR.

AN INSATIABLE DEMAND. [Bt Telegkaph. — Special to The Posr.j INVERCARGILL, This Day. When telling a Southland Times reporter that New Zealand industries are being hampered by want of unskilled labour, Air. Lomas, Chief Factory Inspector, said that navvies especially were very difficult to obtain. Pick and ■ shovel men were being sought after for works in different parts of tho North j Island, but thoy simply could- not bo got. A little time ago application had been made to the department for 60 men, and the department could not place one. The same state of affairs was pretty well universal in factories of all kinds, particularly as regards female la~ ) bour. Dressmakers, milliners; and workers of that class wore not in such de- i inand, but there seemed to bo plenty of j employment for every ono in the trades, I and pernaps more could be placed than were employed at present. Immigrants who arrived in New Zealand wero never more than two or three days out of employment after landing in the colony. A woollen miller had spoken to him in Wellington and had asked him to send to him any family which came out ip search of work. If any -man with a family would come to his mill he would pay him £2 2s a week if he had never seen a mill, in order that he might employ his family. It was the custom of the Labour Department to furnish the Immigration Department with a list of applications received from employers in need of hands. These lists were taken on board the ship on arrival, and many of tho new arrivals wero put in the way of getting employment before they left the ship. The demand for unskilled labour seemed to be practically insatiable.