SHORTAGE OF GIRL LABOUR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 80, 24 May 1911, Page 2

SHORTAGE OF GIRL LABOUR.

IMMIGRATION NOT FAVOURED. The shortage of juvenile labour, and especially of girls for the clothing trade, is being acutely felt in Auckland. Enquiries made by a reporter showed that in the clothing and shirt factories especially the proprietors arc unable to obtain as many girls as can he profitably employed, and that machines that have been put in in the hope of an expansion of business perforce remain idle. Worse than this, it is found in some cases to bo impossible to fulfil the existing , demand with locally-made goods, so that importations have to be made of com* modifies that under other circumstances would lie made in the Dominion. As perhaps little, if any more than half the cost of such goods is represented by the value of the actual material, the importation means a considerable diminution in the amount of money circulated in the community. A member of the firm of Arch. Clark and Sons, Ltd., in discussing the matter, said that his firm employed about 500 girls, and for a great part of the year it could find work for at least 150 more. Ho expressed doubt as to the success of an immigration scheme to supply the shortage. J’nys could be brought out for farm work, and quartered comfortably, and t''o Government could bring out girls for domestic service, and. perbapc for office work, but the selection of 'gills to. work in factories would have to lie done by experts in the trades concerned. There would bo. in addition, great difficulty in providing for the social side of the lives of girls after they . reached the Dominion. The offering of increased wages would not. remedy the matter, for his experience vas that it was not a matter of mono”. Even a largo increase in the rate of pay would affnu! hut a small relief. Ke considered that tiie principal causes of the difficulty were the" disinclination of girls to do factory work, and the Fact that times were so good that man" did not require to work who would certainly he helping to swell the family income if .there wore some depression. No one wished the affairs of the people to ho less nourishing than at present, but undoubtedly a charge for the worse in that respect would help the factories to obtain more young female labour. The difficulty Would be overcome to some extent, , pot rt once, but gradually, by. the more liberal opening vn of the country and the consequent increasing of the population of btth country and town.