MARKED SUCCESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 10

MARKED SUCCESS

PLACEMENT SCHEME

OVER 500 MEN BENEFIT

"The placement scheme" is now in full working order in the nineteen Labour Department districts in the Dominion, and though it has been in active operation for only five weeks, it has a record of "placements" that is astonishing. Over 500 men have been reabsorbed into private employment since the initiation of the plan. The placements represent permanent and casual positions in almost equal numbers.

The reinstatement each week of 100 men in satisfactory private occupations, at regular wages that will permit of the purchase of all the family's needs, and of occasional luxuries, has restored their self-confidence to these men, and possibly in some cases has dissipated tragic beliefs, the outcome of years of unemployment, that the private labour market was for ever closed to them. Self-confidence and fearlessness are assets of quality in individuals as in nations. 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 back to work. In view of the persistence of unemployment on a large scale for about six years, the task appeared to be almost impossible of achievement; but the job was tackled on methodical business lines.

Early successes stimulated the placement officers to extend the scope of their efforts and to endeavour to place the square pegs in square holes, instead of hurrying an applicant into the first available job.

This is only one phase of the care-fully-organised placement service that is hoping to bar up, as far as possible, all the blind alleys and give the disengaged man trained in 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 own trade or occupation where the competition for available work is less marked. The activities of the Placement Offijcers are not wholly parochial. If they have on their lists of applicants the name of a capable tradesman for whom a position is; not available at the moment, and the man has expressed his willingness to accept work at a distance, neighbouring Placement Officers are immediately communicated witlj, 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.

John is then asked to supply certain necessary —vige, conjugal condition, educational, and technical qualifications, previous employers, and periods of service, main occupation, alternative occupation, and a few minor details.

It appears that John's main occupation lias been that of an ironmoulder, involving very hard work in wet sand, and after nearly ten years of this trying work his health began to fail and he had to take other work. For several years he had drifted from one labr ouring job to another, and as he now considered he could stand up to a further period of his original trade, he thought he would "give the placement scheme a go." John is a well-set-up chap of 34, clean and wholesome-looking; but possibly the employers he had interviewed were dubious of employing a man whp had been so long away from the trade, and regretted that they could not place him. Within a short time of his leaving the office a . possible employer was located and had interviewed John. The outcome was the offer of a job on trial; tools were arranged for by the placement officer, and John started work next day. The story needs no elaboration. A capable tradesman, drifting around from one "blind-alley" job to another for over five years, is placed in profitable employment in his own trade within 24 hours of his "last-resource" application to the placement officer. _ John's story has been duplicated ut over 500 cases, and as no single phase of life succeeds more remarkably than success itself the* taily may reach well into four figures during the next few months.