RURAL LABOUR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24826, 28 January 1942, Page 6

RURAL LABOUR

SHORTAGE IN AUSTRALIA HEAVY FRUIT LOSSES PROBABLE CANBERRA, Jan. 27. About half the dried fruit crop this season, worth about £1,500,000, will probably be lost. The Minister of Commerce, Mr W. J. Scully, giving this information, said there was a serious shortage of manpower in rural industries. Seven thousand workers would be needed shortly for fruit picking at Mildura and Leeton. The Minister said he had conferred with the Minister of the Army, Mr F. M. Forde, about the rural labour shortage. An executive officer of the Commerce Department said 85 per cent, of rural employees had either left their jobs for munition work or had been called up for military service. Thousands of sheep had already died from disease because skilled labour was not available to attend to them. Some cattle and sheep stations employing 15 men had 12 of them called up. Mr Scully said that wool was to be stored in a chain of inland sheds so that it would not be exposed to the risks of enemy action. “ Shadow ” appraisement and storage sheds would be built in parts of Australia which were considered most suitable for the purpose and safest against attack.