FOR HUMANITY

Grey River Argus, 24 April 1937, Page 4

FOR HUMANITY

An Outstanding Service EVERYONE BENEFITS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, April 23. Continued high levels of placements and increases in the volume of applications have marked the operations of the State Placement Service during the past six months, the weekly average of positions found being approximately 900 over the period. The general public, has accepted the service as an essential and effective auxiliary of I he national recovery process. and employers have found it the solution of a considerable portion of their staffing difficulties, for the service system ensures that only properly accredited applicants are recommended for the consideration of employers. Finally, a corollary of its operations has been the restoration to thousands of men, women and children —to the aged, infirm, and many men previously regarded as unemployable — those amenities of life which during the “lean” years of the depression they had not been able to enjoy. Life for them has donned a new garb, and its bright colours are in very ; cheerful contrast to the drabness of the garment, with its ragged edges and its worthlessness as a barrier against the rigours of poverty and ill-health, that' had formerly fluttered hopelessly from their shoulders. INTO THE BY-WAYS. . vThe Placement Service has been, and will continue to be, actually a service for humanity. Where it has been necessary, its officers have stepped from the beaten paths of enquiry and have followed barely visible tracks that led to vacancies that the ordinary applicants for work rvould never have discovered. Tact, initiative, resourcefulness and the help of the service branches have been brought to bear on problems that hav e baffled individuals in their search for employment, and if by these means positions are found, their application is regarded as having been well worth while. DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME. The road upon which the service has travelled has not been an easy one. There have been difficulties at many points. This was inevitable in a system that differed so greatly from any scheme for unemployment reduction that had yet been attempted in the Dominion. The public viewed the new •plan very doubtfully for some weeks, and little help was obtained from those in whose interests it had been inaugurated. But being the result of careful study and being based on a thoroughly-systematised plan, its success was only a matter of time. THE SERVICE TESTED. I So far as skilled tradesmen weret

concerned, there was little difficulty in placing them when suitable vacancies were discovered. The test came when this class of unemployed became scarce, and the service registers had to be searched for tradesmen -who had, during the depression, drifted into other jobs. Rendered idle by the closing down of the businesses that had employed them, and anxious to obtain work of any kind, they applied for work as labourers, or for similar employment, regardless of their ability, physical or otherwise, to do such work The immediate necessity of getting a job—any kind of a job—even if it led nowhere, and offered no worthwhile experience, unfortunately superseded all other considerations. RE-ENTERING THEIR TRADES. Yet when the lists were examined, hundreds of such men were induced to leave these mediocre positions, aud .they are now proving that their skill, their initiative, and their enterprise are still valuable assets' in the Dominion’s industrial activities. There are, of course, many men who cannot readily be employed, because of age, physical disability, or for other reasons, and a small number of others ar in a class that may bo described as unemployable. Some of the former aro still being placed in suitable work, and the Government has made provision for those .of the latter class who can show that they come within the scope of the social legislation provided to deal with such eases. WHOLLY HUMANITARIAN. Meanwhile, the Placement Service will continue its entirely altruistic work. Its officers cannot do the impossible, but by no means at present known have unemployed men a better chance of being placed than by the methods that have made the service the outstanding success it is to-day. Ono dominant factor of the operations of the State Placement Service is that they are communal in every sense of that vital word—every individual in the community is directly or indirectly benefited because it has been the means of obtaining for thousands of men normal wages, the expenditure of which is contributing materially to the country’s prosperity.