PROBLEM OF IDLE BOYS IN AUSTRALIA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6954, 6 July 1929, Page 5

PROBLEM OF IDLE BOYS IN AUSTRALIA

ASPECT OF DEPRESSION,

SYDNEY, June 20.

In Sydney the other day a hairdresser advertised for a boy to learn the trade. The advertisement appeared in a morning paper, and before 7 o’clock that morning there were. 50 boys waiting outside the establishment. By S o’clock the number had increased to 70, and when the manager appeared on the scene at 5.30 he quickly became the centre of qu excited crowd of 130 boys, all, it would appear, anxious to become hairdressers. But were they? That is the point. Very likely the day before they displayed the same anxiety to become metal workers, and the following day, perhaps, they displayed the sanpe anxiety to learn how to pack tea, or mend boots, or run messages, or any of the thousand and ono things there are to bo done in a great city.

The position is the same in Victoria. Recently the Railway Commissioners there announced that they had available 70 vacancies for apprentices in their Newport workshops. They received 3100 applications from all over the State. A city firm in Melbourne last week advertised for a boy, and there were 83 applications. This difficulty in placing boys who have just left school is a serious aspect of the present industrial depression in Australia —a depression that has to a large extent been brought about by the never-ending industrial troubles. Why is it that the demand for boys does not equal the supply? Is there a remedy? These are the questions that arc causing the parents considerable anxiety. The secretary of the apprenticeship Commission in Victoria said that the present industrial trouble was reaching all sections of the community, and every industry was being affected. That was one reason why the number of applicants for boys’ positions was greater than the need. Employers arc not likely to engage apprentices when there was no work going on in their workshops. On the other hand, a nran who has had considerable experience in placing boys in commercial pursuits said that he did not experience the slightest difficulty in that connection, provided it could be shown that the boy was trustworthy and reliable, and that his school career had been satisfactory. There appeared to be many vacancies in offices for boys, but all boys were not suited lor that class of vork.

The headmaster of the junior classes at the Working Men’s College in Melbourne, said it would be better if the boys were kept longer at Lbo (state schools, so that they would be better equipped for the buttle of life. As someone has pointed out, that is all very well in theory, but in times of depression there arc many parents who need whatever amount their children can earn, and who cannot afford to keep them at school wearing out clothes and shoe leather and eating all they can get. And so it seems that this is one of the problems that must wait until Australia can boast a contented lot of workers all sharing the task of making the country a-s prosperous as it should be.