IMPRESSIVE RECORD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 18, 22 January 1937, Page 7

IMPRESSIVE RECORD

22,000 JOBS PLACEMENT SERVICE REVIEWED (Contributed.) The State Placement Service return for its first week's operations, the week ended May 30, 1936, disclosd that 279 positions had been found, 154 being of a temporary nature, and the rest being classed as permanent. That was something of an achievement for a scheme that had followed closely a succession of ambitious plans for providing work for the Dominion's unemployed and for stimulating industries, but which had not resulted in appreciably reducing the aggregate unemployment registrations by direct absorption in private employment. The public were not impressed by the announcement, because it had no knowledge of. the weeks that had been, occupied in planning the groundwork of the service, of the systematic organisation that was put into every detail, nor of the care that had been exercised in selecting the right type of officers to administer it. This was for New Zealand •an entirely new method of dealing with unemployment, and therefore required an administrative system completely different from those that had been evolved for the "relief schemes. It tackled the problem by ignoring the difficulty of re-employment, and after having experienced, for more than five years, a steady increase in the aggregate registrations, the public were dis- , posed to regard such an attitude as heresy. ' WEEKLY RECORDS MOUNT UP. The second week's placements numbered 493, and that of the third week, ended June 13, was 704. The organiser of the service, and its administrative officers, watched, the progress of their fledgeling with satisfaction, and soon felt that the results justified all their hopes in the scheme. The weekly records began to expand in a remarkable mariner. At the end of September, four months after the commencement of the service, the number of jobs found was 8195, which exceeded by 769 those for the previous week. Six weeks later the gross total had risen to 12,894, the number of placements for the week ended November 7 being 1030. During the following six weeks to December 19 the aggregate had risen, by jumps of more than one thousand each y?eek, to the surprising figure of-19,243, and the total to January 16 had reached 22 189. ' IMPRESSIVE TOTALS. The details of the Dominion placements to Saturday last are: Permanent, 10,656; casual, 5499; temporary, 6034; and it is interesting to compare them with the official figures showing the decrease in the total number of men wholly or partly dependent upon the Employment Promotion Fund during October, November, and December last year. The decrease in the four-weekly period ended October 24 was 3279, for a similar period to November 21 the reduction was 3799, and during the four weeks to December 19 a further decrease of 3269 was recorded. EFFECT ON UNEMPLOYMENT TOTALS. . Those figures show that during the twelve weeks the actual decrease in the number of registered unemployed amounted to 10,347, of which total 9450 had been in receipt of relief either under Scheme 5 or on sustenance. It is claimed that the Placement Service found' jobs for 5741 of those men in the periods mentioned, and also that the service was responsible for the decrease of 897 representing the difference between the aggregate decrease in the number of registered unemployed and the total (9450) of those actually in receipt of rationed relief work or sustenance. SERVICE TO THE Although it is not claimed that th« placing of men in temporary or. casual positions materially contributes to the solution of the unemployment difficulty, it is a fact that a good number of men so placed have had their terms of employment considerably extended or made permanent. A further point for consideration is that the finding of even casual and temporary private jobs for 11,533 men is a distinct contribution to the material well-being of themselves and their families, as well as a factor in the creation of additional employment, because of the consequential wages expenditure, and an aid to Dominion rehabilitation. There is, of course, no necessity to stress the very substantial results due to finding permanent full-time "standard-rate jobf for 10,656 men. These' alone,. it is claimed; provide , ample justification for the inauguration of the Placement Service, and-its weekly progress -warrants the. belief that eventually it will become the only publicly-recognised Dominion clearing-house for all classes of labour. The published placement figures do not include a very large number of men for whom' the service has. found employment with various "Government Departments—Public .Works, Forestry, Railway, etc. The fact that the quali» fications of all men supplied have tha endorsement of officers of the servica has simplified the staffing problems of these important State Departments.