POPULAR EMPLOYMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27386, 11 May 1950, Page 6

POPULAR EMPLOYMENT

Trades Apprenticeships SHORTAGE OF BOYS STILL APPARENT Trades apprenticeships are the most popular employment sought by boys leaving school at the present time, according to the District Vocational Guidance Officer, Mr T. Conly. Among the trades, cabinetmaker and carpenter apprenticeships were the most favoured, he said yesterday. Strangly, there was now a shortage of suitably educated boys for training as mechanical engineers, motor mechanics and electricians. Radio work had gone out of favour, although for the better educated boys there were attractive opportunities for training in this work. Professional engineering and drafting work appeared to have lost their one-time strong appeal, and yet there were vacancies offering excellent training. . This decline of interest in mechanical work was somewhat surprising, Mr Conly said, as the big power projects under way in New Zealand should indicate a further need for trained engineers. There was a similar change of interests in girls seeking employment, which accounted in part for the shortages in all branches of the clothing trades. The number of girls leaving school at present was just not sufficient to cope with the expansion in workrooms. . The fashions in the choice of occupations by boys and girls was not a new feature, and already had resulted in what might be called scarcity pay for young men and women in the less - popular callings. Those leaving school and their parents did not always realise that the less popular work was by no hieans the least interesting. “ It is sometimes said that labouring and stop-gap work offers sudh high wages that young people are tempted from the skilled callings” Mr Conly said. This was not the experience of the Vocational Guidance officers, who yearly introduced hundreds of girls and boys to employment. In fact, high starting wages were not an effective means to attract girls and boys to a calling, although relatively low wages could deter entrance to some jobs. It was felt that the number of young people going to the stop-gap and unskilled jobs was steadily declining, and this presented its own problems to employers wanting message boys and unskilled junior workers. The apprenticeship position in the building trade was definitely getting worse, said' the works manager of a large city building firm. About three or four years ago, his firm had a waiting list of boys waiting to take out apprenticeship papers, but now they could place about four or five. He thought the imposing of a two years secondary school education on prospective apprentices within the last year had been effective in reducing the number of boys prepared to spend time in learning a skilled trade. “ Mothers • won't wash the shirts now,” said the manager of an engineering firm. He had found it almost impossible to obtain apprentices for the blacksmith, boilermaking and moulding trades, and considered that parents were as much to blame as their sons for the latter preferring to work in stop-gap jobs earning higher wages than they could receive learning a “ dirty ” trade. Conditions of work in foundries, however, had improved out of sight within the last few years