LABOUR IN INDUSTRY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 30 September 1936, Page 8

LABOUR IN INDUSTRY

SHOPS AND OFFICES. APPRENTICESHIP POSITION. CBv Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) J WELLIinGTON, Sept. 29. The recent legislation relating to shops and offices gives increasing importance to the figures m the Labour .department’s annual report regarding the number of employees in these occupations. The report states that the department lias no accurate information, but it estimates tiiat there are 27,672 shops in the Dominion, of which approximately one half are conducted without assistants. In shops with assistants there are 21,380 males and 29,113 females employed. The department’s inspectors made 14 000 visits to inspect wages books, etc., and instituted 314 prosecutions, securing 221 convictions, with lines totalling £294. , The number ot boys under the age of 10 years who commenced factory work last year is the highest since 1929, being 1026, while the girls totalled 1904, making a grand total of 2990 tiie highest ngure in tho department s Xn/ apprenticeship position, which in the previous report w r as the subject of concern, showed an improvement, 1292 contracts being registered, while the number of apprentices is 3002, which compares badly with the 1928 total of 10,227. The report suggests that with the increase in commence employers are again prepared to engage but the sharp decline in numbers during the depression and the consequent likelihood of a shortage of skilled tradesmen in tho near luture gives rise to serious consideration of the desirability of encouraging employers to give suitable training to persons who, by force of circumstances, were prevented from serving a period of apprenticeship.