The Southland Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1945. Female Labour in New Zealand

Southland Times, Issue 25835, 21 November 1945, Page 4

The Southland Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1945. Female Labour in New Zealand

AT THE ANNUAL meeting of the Mosgiel Woollen Company, reported briefly in yesterday’s commercial news, reference was made to “the reduced nufnber of females” employed at the mills. “For this reason alone our sales have dropped,” said the chairman of directors, Mr J. S. Hislop, “and on this issue I cannot view the immediate future with optimism.” He added that “the shortage of female workers is not, of course, peculiar to this company, and present indications are that today’s shortage will continue for some years.” Although young women are still available for employment in Southland, where secondary industries are not numerous, the position in most other parts of the country is difficult. Nor can this be surprising if attention is given to the relevant facts. The number of employable women in New Zealand is not large. At the end of 1942, according to an estimate in the Year Book, there were 195,500 females between the ages of 15 and 29. It is mainly from these age groups that girls and women are drawn into the many occupations that require them. They become school teachers, nurses, clerks, shop assistants, waitresses, factory operatives, domestic workers and so .on. Although some women remain at work until middle life, the great majority become wives and mothers at a fairly early age. In wartime thousands of married women took positions temporarily; but they are giving them up today as their husbands return from overseas. Many younger women are leaving their jobs to marry servicemen. The salient facts are therefore the smallness of the labour pool, its tendency to become smaller in a country with an ageing population, and its rapid contraction as the nation passes from a war to a peacetime economy. During the war years, however, there has been a considerable industrial expansion. Although some new industries were intended to relieve wartime shortages, they are not likely to be discarded now that goods can be imported from overseas. On the contrary, the Government’s avowed policy is to protect local industries by imposing restrictions and, in some cases, outright embargoes on imports. There is a natural tendency for manufacturers to prefer female labour, mainly because it is cheaper. Production costs are already so heavy, especially where raw materials have to be brought thousands of miles across the seas, that wages for male workers would make the prices impossibly high. It would be uneconomic to employ men for the lighter semi-skilled tasks that can be performed efficiently by women. As the direct result of these developments, industries which have long been established in New Zealand, and which (notably in the case of the woollen mills) make use of raw materials produced in the country, are finding it harder to meet their bare labour requirements.

Essential Requirements

There can be few families today which are not in need of new blankets. The mills can produce them, together’ with other goods in short supply, if they can obtain enough workers. But thousands of girls who could be doing this useful work are employed in factories that are producing highly-priced articles which could be imported cheaply from Britain. Similarly, the tobacco shortage is becoming a famine, and the reason is simply that female workers arc leaving the factories to set up their own homes. How are they to be replaced? If there were fewer industries of the kinds recently established, the female workers would be drawn naturally into the old-established factories. The return of servicemen, followed by the displacing of women who are now doing men’s work, may relieve the situation to a certain extent; but many of these women are also waiting to be married, and others are engaged in occupations which they are not likely to exchange for factory work. It is becoming obvious that female labour is badly distributed. This could be corrected in wartime by manpower controls; but the Government dare not retain controls a moment longer than is necessary. Recent expressions of public opinion have indicated very plainly that their unpopularity can become a political factor. It may shortly be necessary to decide whether New Zealand is to have an adequate supply of woollen goods (which in the past have always been plentiful), cigarettes and tobacco, food products and other' commodities of primary importance, or whether these goods are to be periodically scarce while women who could help to produce them are being drawn into uneconomic enterprises. The position today is aggravated by the special difficulties which attend a transition period; but the fundamental problem will not be temporary. In a small country, with a limited supply of labour, a point must be reached where planning of some sort will be necessary. What industries are to be given priority? And if there are to be priorities, how can they be enforced without relying upon a peacetime direction of labour? It is true, of course, that many new industries will absorb male workers; but in almost every factory there are jobs suitable for women. Under modern conditions, with a greater use being made of machinery, the reliance upon female labour tends to inertease. We have not touched here on the economic consequences of cutting down imports from New Zealand’s best customer. Our intention has been merely to inquire into the labour difficulties which must accompany a haphazard expansion of secondary industries, more especially as they affegt the availability of female labour fo\- other and more essential occupations. Unless the situation is examined carefully, with some attention to the handicaps of a tiny population, it seems probable that shortages and queues will become permanent features of life in New Zealand.