RETURNED MEN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4561, 17 April 1942, Page 8

RETURNED MEN

REINSTATEMENT PROCEEDS SMOOTHLY OFFICIAL STATEMENT Up to the present the reinstatement of returned soldiers in New Zealand has been proceeding smoothly, an officer of the employment and repatriation division of the National Service Department stated at Wellington on Wednesday.

A total of 466 men have returned to the positions they held before joining the Army, 884 have taken other employment, 546 have returned to the Army, 13 have died, 10 have left New Zealand and eight possess means of their own. Under the regulations it is the soldier’s responsibility to notify his employer that he has been discharged from the Army within one month of that discharge if it takes place in New Zealand, or within six months if it takes place overseas. The officer said that no cases had come to his notice of a discharged soldier exceeding those stipulated periods before asking for his job back. After the periods have elapsed the employer is under no obligation to reinstate a former employee, but the officer said that his division would probably do what it could to assist a soldier’s reinstatement even if he had not informed his former employer in time. Both soldiers and employers had been most reasonable in the discharge of their responsibilities, and in an insignificant number of cases so far had court action, or even the threat of action, been necessary before returned men were reinstated.