WAR PERSONNEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 43, 19 August 1941, Page 6

WAR PERSONNEL

DEMAND FOR WOMEN

INCREASING REPLACEMENT OF MEN

(Rec. 10.30 a.m.)

RUGBY, Aug. 18,

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, Mr. R. Assheton, speaking in London, said: "I think the country is beginning to realise the very great, difficulties of the man-power situation. As the war develops the strain upon our man-power and woman-power increases, and we have not only reached a point when there is no surplus man-power available, but we have reached a point where it is becoming very difficult to satisfy all our important needs.

"We must remember that there are many demands in this.war which we did not have to meet in the last war. There is, to begin with, the vast new demand for men "for the R.A.F. and for the great aircraft industry which supports it. There is also an entirely new demand for the civil defence service and the fire service, owing to the fact that we meet the war in our own homes as well as on the battlefronts overseas. As more and more men are called up the demand for women to take their places grows, and at the present time the services nre baoly in need of women to do work which was previously done by men, who are thus released for duties which women cannot undertake.

"Although there is no conscription for women tor the forces in the normally accepted use of that word, there certainly is compulsion for war work, and compulsion will be applied in c ses where this is necessary. Our experience so far in dealing with the call-up of women has been very favourable. Girls are generally ready and willing to do what is wanted, and 1 need hardly say that they are most anxious to help their country."—B.O.W.