ASSISTED IMMIGRANTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26780, 25 May 1948, Page 4

ASSISTED IMMIGRANTS

ACCOMMODATION PROBLEM RELIANCE ON PRIVATE, SOURCES Special Correspondent WELLINGTON, May 24. Employers and other interested parties in the various centres have been asked to find accommodation for immigrants outside that provided already by the Government. Because of the difficulty it faces in extension of hostel accommodation, the Department of Employment and Labour, which administers the immigration policy, has been obliged to rely increasingly on accommodation available from private sources. To a considerable extent the distribution of immigrants from drafts due to arrive soon will depend on the accommodation the different centres can provide. A town or city able to supply the greatest housing space appears likely to get the greatest number of immigrants. The assisted immigrants are all single. The first batches were brought out for jobs in which housing was largely provided for, as in nursing; now, however, a wider list of occupations is covered. Hostels in the main centres, converted for the use of immigrants, have only limited accommodation, and the department is looking for the maximum assistance from employers and local committees. Under all immigration schemes, many of those who have arrived in recent months have not settled down into the jobs allocated. It is well known that difficulties arose over the appointment of immigrant nurses to the mental hospitals, and that there are many cases there andt elsewhere of immigrants transferring to other jobs. In these cases they forfeit the cost of their passage (about £9O). To avoid forfeiture of this amount they must remain for two years in the employment for which they undertook the original contract.