WORSE THAN EVER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16908, 23 March 1929, Page 5

WORSE THAN EVER

LACK OF EMPLOYMENT POSITION IN CHRISTCHURCH (Special to the Herald.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The unemployment position in Christchurch this winter, from present indications, will be as bad as it was last year, and possibly worse. There arc some .ICO men registered at the Government employment bureau, to say nothing of the hundreds who do not register there. In some way or another these unfortunates and thei: families must live, or, as one T; ados Hall official put if to-day, “exist” through the cold months when work is scarce.

Will there be work? No big jobs are ahead in the city so far as can be ascertained except the City Council's work in Colombo street, and tho gang for that has already been engaged. Every day men are coming back to Christchurch from the country districts where such work as there was lias about petered out. The mills have got, their full crews, and there is not much harvesting left to be done, so in hope and in fear of disappointment the men return to the streets and wharves looking for work where there is all too little work to be given to them. Lately they have been going in an almost constant, stream to see the secretary of the General Laborers’ Union at the Trades Hall. The registrations at the Government bureau are full of significance in their indication of the number of single men who are getting back on the books after their return from the country. The proportion lately has been well ahead of married men.