AUCKLAND EMPLOYERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23200, 26 May 1937, Page 10

AUCKLAND EMPLOYERS

SHORTAGE OF SKILLED LABOUR

PREFERENCE FOR PUBLIC WORKS TRADESMEN FROM AUSTRALIA (Special to Daily Times) . AUCKLAND, May 25. Auckland employers whose plants arc working up to peak capacity are slated to be suffering new embarrassments as the result of a persistent shortage of labour The problem is accentuated in the case of skilled hands, and the principal of one registry office said that tradesmen were being imported from Australia to fill some of the vacant positions.

Unemployed tradesmen are being more and more regarded as a rarity' It was stated that, finding it impossible to fill the demand in New Zealand a number of employers had been forced to advertise for skilled men in Australian newspapers, offering a free passage, which, with the relatively high union rates of wages prevailing in the Dominion, was a considerable inducement to the applicants Within ten minutes one registry office found positions for two Australians who had come to New Zealand in the hope of securing permanent jobs. Grade motor mechanics, panel beaters, upholsterers, fitters and turners and electrical wiremen are perhaps the most scarce of this class of labour, while the rapid expansion of trade in the last 18 months is regarded as one of the factors influencing the position. Several employers and managers of registry offices considered that the development of the public works schemes had taken a large number of men from the occupations which they had been trained to follow.

" During the latter years of the depression many skilled tradesmen chose public works camps in preference to unemployment, and rightlv so.'but to-day they show no inclination to return to their real sphere," the proprietor of one registry office explained. " Receiving a regular wage of £4 a week and perhaps finding the conditions genial, they do not feel disposed to return to industry. Some say they have lost their skill in the year or so they have spent in manual work, but very few tradesmen must be affected in this way, and in the circumstances I feel sure employers would make full allowance for any temporary incapacity. There is no dearth of labour in New Zealand, but it is hidden in the camps of the Public Works Department."