YOUTH AND EMPLOYMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23111, 9 August 1938, Page 8

YOUTH AND EMPLOYMENT

Another handicap on youths seeking employment after they have passed their teens has been imposed by the Dominion award governing the retail grocery business, which has just been issued. It fixes commencing rates of wages for those entering the occupation from the age of under 16 to 20. Progressive increments are provided to a maximum level of £5 2s 6d, which is reached by most employees at approximately 24 years of age. A beginner who is 20 years of age or more must, however, be paid £5 2s 6d a week from the outset. Between 19 and 20 years the commencing rate is £l 15s 6d. On the figures, a grocer willing to engage an untrained assistant could start him off at £l 15s 6d if his age were 19 years and 11 months, and need not pay him £5 2s 6d until his fifth year of employment. A youth one month older would be entitled to £5 2s 6d from the beginning. The consequences are easy to see. Nobody over 20 years of age will have any chance of engagement in the grocery business as a learner. This was done by the .Court itself. The dissenting memorandum by Mr. V. Duff says clearly that the rate awarded to workers between the ages of 20 and 21 years is 17s 6d a week more than was asked for by the union. Much the same thing was done in the clerical workers' award, where the commencing salary at 21 years or over was fixed at £5 10s. These two actions are quite inconsistent with the Court's own determination of the basic wage. It was fixed at £3 16s by general order for adult unskilled workers. In the grocery award, the Court says that a worker of 21 years or upward shall be paid not less than the basic wage; yet it stipulates that a beginner of that age must receive £5 2s 6d. This makes the grocery trade a closed occupation to youth, or rather young manhood. The door is barred to it, as to clerical work, for young men without experience. It is no part of the Court's functions to create these closed occupations, as it has done entirely of its own [ motion.