SHORTAGE OF APPRENTICES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18389, 3 May 1923, Page 8

SHORTAGE OF APPRENTICES

SWELLING UNSKILLED RANKS. CONSIDERATION OF PROBLEM [by telegraph.— association.] ■WELLINGTON. Wednesday. A conference of representatives of employers and workers' organisations was opened to-day by tho Minister for Labour, the Hon. G. J. Anderson, to consider proposals drafted with a view to improving conditions regarding apprentices. The Minister said he regarded the conference as being one of the most important held in New Zealand, for, if it were successful in overcoming difficulties of teaching young people trades, it would be easier to achieve greater prosperity for tho Dominion in future. Since the slump unemployment bad begun to increase, and it was found that a large proportion of sufferers were those engaged . in blindalley occupations. Unemployment had been overcome to a large extent, and to-day there was not much more than half the number of unemployed on the Labour Department's books there was a year ago. He wanted full and frank discussion on the proposals drafted, and said that, after the Bill was prepared, any matters considered vital would be subject for evidence before the Labour Bills Committee. He proposed to circulate the result of the deliberations of the conference to union workers and employers and the general public. It seemed to him that apprenticeship in the future would have to be on a different basis than in the past, and he thought that technical schools, and even primary schools, could work in such a' way that boys and girls could be selected for trades when it was considered that they were unfitted for professional occupations. He thought it was the duty of schools to advise parents. The conference is discussing the question in private, the Minister stating that reports of the proceedings will be supplied later.