WHAT DO THE GIRLS DO?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14579, 16 January 1911, Page 6

WHAT DO THE GIRLS DO?

A GREAT FACTORY PROBLEM. "WE CAN'T GET THEM." Tire complaints of Southern manufacturers regarding, the difficulty in obtaining the necessary female labour, for their ' factories are in every respect endorsed by Auckland employers of labour. The scarcity of girls is a long-standing cry in many local factories, and some inquiries on Saturday demonstrated that there are no immediate prospects of a cessation of the complaint. The manager of the Onehunga Woollen Mills stated that although he had succeeded since the holidays in getting all the girls that he required just at present, all through last year there had been a great difficulty in obtaining both girls and boys, especially boys. "The boys that we do get," he added, "are generally more ornamental than useful." The. reason of the scarcity is not that there are not sufficient young people about, as there are enough of them running about Onehunga to keep two or three mills going. Casual work, at which they can put. in two or three days a week, seems to satisfy the majority of them." ;

"Girls seem to be scarcer than ever," said tho manager of one of the city clothing factories, who said that his experience was, ho believed, that of all tlio clothing factories. The manager of a boot factory, on being questioned, said "We could not get all the girls we wanted during last year had we been able to do so we could have turned but a lot more stuff and sold it. I advertised during the holidays for girls for machine work, but got no applications. You can't got them for love or money, and yet if you go down Queenstreet you will see.hundreds and hundreds of girls walking about. Our factory resumed work last Monday, but we have not yet got more than about half of our girls back, owing to so many of them prolonging their holidays. , One- would imagine that 'as so: many girls leave school; at Christmas, that there would be plenty available at the beginning of the year, but it is not so." • _'. ...'-■.'"■