CARPENTERS NEEDED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23221, 19 June 1937, Page 14

CARPENTERS NEEDED

SERIOUS SHORTAGE APPARENT EXPANSION IN BUILDING TRADE THE GOVERNMENT CONCERNED (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 18. The fact that there is at present a serious shortage of carpenters in New Zealand was revealed by Mr J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-sec-retary in Charge of the Ministry of Housing, in a telephone interview with the New Zealand Herald. “ The statement has been made in Auckland that there are 200 unemployed carpenters in the city,” Mr Lee said. “ A building firm in Auckland recently asked those responsible for making the statement to provide 20 carpenters for whom steady and remunerative work would be made available. Actually the services of only 13 men could be obtained.”

Mr Lee said it appeared veiy likely that the shortage of builders would assume serious proportions in the near future. There was a definite shortage- already and, as the number of Government housing contracts increased, the problem would become even more serious. The Government was deeply concerned at the position and it might be necessary to consider whether or not steps should be taken relieve the shortage. “It is fairly obvious,” Mr Lee added, “ that, when certain people get hysterical the fact that an advertisement was issued for 20 loiners in Scotland for work in New Zealand, they can have no real conception of the situation as it exists in the Dominion. “ There has been extraordinary progress in public building in the last few months,” Mr Lee continued, “ and I gather that a considerable programme of ordinary commercial building is likely to be undertaken in the near future. For all these operations labour will be required. It is something at any rate to feel that there is such an expansion in the building trade that there are now reasonable opportunities for young men in that particular class of occupation.”