PLACEMENT SCHEME

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 23 September 1936, Page 4

PLACEMENT SCHEME

FURTHER ASSISTANCE THREE IN A FAMILY WELLINGTON, This Day. A father and his two sons were among those for whom permanent work was recently found by a Placement Officer. As they were without special qualifications for any kind of work the possibility of placing them appeared to be remote, but by judicious enquiries the Placement Officer found an opening for the father with a local power board, and a position in a foundry for one son; the second youth was placed as an apprentice to a building firm. Thus is the war of attrition waged against unemployment!

AN ARTISAN’S CYCLE Skilled tradesmen, wharf labourers, harvester, builder’s labourer, ploughman, threshing-mill worker —and now, after eighteen years, back again in his trade. That is the record of a man who enrolled at a southern Placement Bureau, after having been on relief since July, 1931. Similar cycles are being travelled by many men who started their industrial lives in important trades and gradually drifted into casual occupations and almost automatically on to relief. The Placement Scheme has in numerous instances checked this drift, and therefore men who have not followed their trades for many years need not give up hopes of eventually getting back to them and making good.

SERVICE APPRECIATED The selection of three married couples for employment on one farm was the experience of an official administering the Labour Department’s Placement Scheme. This unusual duplication of appointments was the result of peculiarly fortuitous circumstances. The first couple proved to be capable, but domestic wrangling resulted in their departure from the farm. The owner made another appeal to the Placement Officer, and a second couple were appointed, but on the day they were to proceed to the farm the husband was involved in a motor-car accident and was killed. Once more the office provided a married couple, and the farmer, who appears to be impressed with the resourcefulness of the officers and the completeness of the organisation of the scheme, has stated hip opinion in the following letter to the Placement Officer: “I am writing to thank you for the trouble you went to in securing a satisfactory farm hand for me, and to tell you how pleased and satisfied I am with the man you sent along.”

“JOBS WHILE YOU WAIT” Some rapid-fire placements were recently recorded at a King Country Placement Office. While a man was enrolling a sawmill-owner inquired over the telephone if a “ropey” was available, and the man stated that he was a “ropey.” Particulars were exchanged, and the man was engaged. Also in the Placement Office were two hauler-drivers, a farmer, and a millowner. The drivers were quickly placed, an appointment between a farm hand and the farmer was made, and a “breaker-down” was communicated with and introduced to the millowner. Subsequently both workers were engaged, and a very busy day was fittingly terminated by the enrolment of a man with a wife and twelve dependent children!

ENQUIRIES FROM OVERSEAS The New Zealand Government’s latest method of dealing with the unemployment problem has been noted in other parts of the world, the latest enquiry having come from Suva, Fiji. A responsible electrical engineering firm in that tropic city has asked the Employment Division of the Labour Department to assist it in the selection of a thoroughly competent electrician, with a knowledge of armature winding.

DIVERSIFIED TRADES Thirty-six different trades and occupations were represented by the 92 men who were placed in private employment by the Wellington Placement Officer during the week ended 12th September. The list included barmen, blacksmiths, bakers, butchers, carpenters, chainmen, clerks, motor drivers, an egg-pulper, a factory hand, joiners, electricians, gardeners, labourers, a printer’s machinist, messengers, painters, a panel beater, porters, plasterers, sail-makers, salesmen, seamen, storemen, a tramway conductor, a waiter, warehousemen, a window cleaner, and a wood-cutter. Several youths were placed as farm hands and the work found for others was as a clerk, a delivery roundsman, an engineer’s assistant, a factory hand, a liftman, a message boy, and a storeman.