DOMESTIC WORK

Evening Star, Issue 22873, 3 February 1938, Page 13

DOMESTIC WORK

SHORTAGE OF APPLICANTS OTHER CLASSES OF WORK PREFERRED It is practically impossible to find women or girls in Dunedin prepared to accept domestic work. It. was reported by some of the city employment bureaux this morning that there are dozens of vacancies for girls in excellent homes, but they prefer not to accept the positions offering, and would rather enter some other form of employment which is more attractive to them. One agent said that unemployed women and girls were being kept by the Government, and, therefore, they did not have any desire to seek work. So long as the Government continued to. give them enough to live on they would not attempt to look for employment. Agents generally agreed that advertising for girls brought no results, even although maids in most homes were no* treated as such, but rather as com-panion-helps. There does not seem,to be any immediate prospect of improvement in, the situation. Many of the agents aproached were of the opinion that the shortage was due to the unfavourable contrast between the conditions for domestics and those for other classes of female workers. Many of th* girls applying for work asked, for positions as hotel waitresses, obviously because the work was for only five days • week and for higher wages. Almost all classes of female worker* except housemaids were privileged to indulge in ample recreation, said ono agent, so it was po wonder that th®7 were not attracted by the prospect of work under private house conditions. It was also suggested that another reason fof the shortage of domestics was that they were not protected by any union, in. the matter of hours, wages and holidays they had to respect tbl will of the employers.