MEN OUT OF WORK

Evening Star, Issue 18030, 26 July 1922, Page 6

MEN OUT OF WORK

NUMBER IN DUNEDIN ABOUT AS U3UAI..

ADVANCE WORKERS FOR DEVIA TION JOB PROBABLY START TO-MORROW.

Thirty-five men who want work have their names'entered at the Dunedin office of tho Department of Labor. The majority are unskilled. Some have been waiting three months.

Mr Laing, secretary of the Returned Soldiers’ Association, has registered fortv applicants within the last fortnight, all but seven being either. married men or single men with dependents. M6st of these forty are laborers. They have been unemployed for periods ranging from a fortnight to five months. Thirty-three returned soldiers are 'now on the grading work at Pclichet Bay. The pay earned on that job from tho 7th to the 22nd inst. totals £lsl 7s lOd. Twelve soldiers are still working at tho Botanic Gardens. It is hoped that when the job there is finished these men, or some of them, will be kept on a little longer by being put to tho tree-planting which is to be done by Air Tannoclc in conjunction with tho Amenities Society, and perhaps after that the men may get a chance on the improvements at the Girls’ High School grounds. There is no unemployed: bureau now at the Town Hall. Applicants for work are referred to the city engineer, and he has 260 or 270 names on his book, about a third of the number having applied in the hope of employment on the railway deviation works.

As to this railway job, Mr Wilkie, Harbor Board engineer, is going to suggest to his hoard that all the unemployed bo registered at tho Central Relief Committee’s office, and that when be wants men he should notify the committee of the number and the committee do tho selecting. Mr Wilkie hopes to be able to start eight men' to-morrow morning, and after .that he will put men on as he can employ them to advantage; but it will probably be a fortnight, perhaps longer, before the deviation work is 'in full swung.