APPRENTICESHIP LAW

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 17 January 1939, Page 9

APPRENTICESHIP LAW

OVERHAUL NECESSARY TRAINED MEN FOR INDUSTRY Figures emphasising the extent of the demand for skilled labour in New Zealand were quoted by the Minister of Labour, the Hon. P. Webb, in discussing, in at interview at the week-end, his desire that the apprenticeship laws shall be overhauled by the industries affected. “New Zealand is in need of 10.000 trained builders alone,” the Minister said. “There are £18,000,000 worth of public buildings waiting to be constructed. and, according to departmental reports, every one is a necessary work. We are 20,000 houses short, and we require to build at least 6000 annually to meet growing demands and the depreciation of old buildings. As a result of the depression conditions, Mr Webb said, the country was faced with the problem of unskilled labour which it was difficult to place outside general navvy work. Though these men were performing an excellent service to the country in improving roads, recreation grounds and the towns and cities, they were not helping materially in the production of consumable goods. TRAINING FOR SECONDARY INDUSTRY "The job that faces us is to see how much of this labour can be retrieved and trained for the purpose of helping in the development of our secondary industries and those which produce consumable goods that the people are in such need of,” the Minister said. “My experience concerning the training of a number of adult apprentices inspired me with the hope that if the young men who rr issed their opportunity during the depression are given a chance to learn a trade, they will soon excel themselves and make better tradesmen than those likely to be obtained overseas.

“To bring such a state to pass will need the wholehearted and sympathetic co-operation of all the interests concerned,” Mr Webb said. “If we had the skilled men to push on with the work requiring to be done, profitable employment would soon be found for the large numbers of unskilled men in the various industries.” More than 1000 of these young men were already apprenticed to the building trade, but many more were needed, the Minister said. PUBLIC AND RELIEF WORKS The question of providing adult labour for the country’s secondary industries was under consideration, he said, and he was hoping that some scheme would be evolved that would absorb large numbers of men now on public and relief works in the development of the secondary industries. If youth was given its chance, the Minister said, it would find its way out, and the overhaul of the apprenticeship laws was one of the first questions that he would ask the employers and the workers on the industrial advisory councils now being set up to consider. The Minister has already announced that he proposes to call a meeting of the parties concerned in Wellington on Wednesday for the purpose of setting up a council. Meetings have already been held in Christchurch, Dunedin and InxercargilL INSPECTION OF FACTORIES “Following this,” said the Minister, “I propose to hold meetings in Auckland and all the other main centres in the hope that the organisation will ultimately have its branches in every town and city in New Zealand I have promised also to make an inspection of many of the factories and listen to the representations of flhe companies on the class of labour that may be utilised in those industries.”