HOPE REVIVED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3802, 31 August 1936, Page 5

HOPE REVIVED

MEN REGAIN STATUS IN-COM-MUNITY. SERVICE TO STATE BY PLACEMENT SCHEME. / WELLINGTON, Monday. Thousands of men have been given again a decent status in the community as the result of the operation of the Placement Scheme organised by the Employment Division of the Department of Labour. After only three months of operation 2,495 men have been found permanent jobs, 869 casual and 1,410 temporary employment through the various Placement branches.

Drama, tragedy and pathos are registered in the stories of those daily visiting the local Placement Office, tho -staff of which seek untiringly through all avenues to transfer men frcim the hopelessness of relief conditions to the happiness following a permanent j&b at normal pay. One sees the faces of men light up when someone is called for from the waiting room and informed that a position has been found for him.

Inasmuch as men with special aptitude for dealing with those in straitened circumstances were required, and in whom the capacity for understanding and the ability to deal &ith the many difficult cases is needed, the interviewing staff has been chosen with considerable care, and this staff is gratuitously placed at the service of employers and applicants. FROM. ALL WALKS OF LIFE.

There are men seeking tlhe aid of the Placement office from every walk of life—professional men, men with wide and Varied mercantile experience, artisans, labourers, all unfortunate enough to have been caught in the, maelstrom of economic chaos, but for whom the Department offers hope of rehabilitation. There are men who, after months of walking the streets, enter the portals of the Placement office to learn the glad tidings that they are ‘back in a job.” What rejoicings in their homes there must be when they return with this happy news!

The enrolment card of each applicant for private employment contains full details of his qualifications, previous employment for many years past and a general analysis by the interviewing officer of his capabilities and fitness for the occupation the applicant desires to follow. On a call being received by the Placement officer to suppl- suitable men for specified jobs, expert officers carefully scrutinise the enrolment cards for all men listed under the category concerned. They select those most fit to measure up to the employers’ requirements and submit their selections to the employer, setting out full details of the man’s qualifications. Wllth this carefully-compiled information at his disposal, the, employer’s margin of error in making his choice is reduced to a minimum.

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE. The Labour Department, in prenaration for the service it will continue to render in the future to both employer and employee, holds a watching belief over all industrial movements and is planmng so that it will be able to provide for any pffoblems that may arise. The experience which the Placement office is nciw gaining will be invaluable in years to come—-it is the groundwork for what will prove an invaluable asset Ito both tire State and the community. The Placement Scheme is not now in principle but its methods are distinctly modern and efficient—they ‘are the outcome of the urgency of the times. So successful has the experiment proved that the Scheme is destined to remain a permanent feature of the Department’s operations. The co-operation of employers is earnestly sought. In its endeavour to find occupations for those out of Work the Department of Labour is desirious of finding the best material available for the employer. There are men on the Placement registers whose qualifications are of the highest, and in whom the will to work is as strong as it was before they became victims, of the industrial difficulties. The fight that some of these men have made, in adversity has been almost heroic, but the Placement officers are endeavouring, by recommending them for suitable well-paid employment, to assist them to forget the dreadful days of the past in the brighter days of the present.