SURPLUS CARPENTERS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 May 1930, Page 6

SURPLUS CARPENTERS

MEN FROM AUSTRALIA. SHORTAGE OF WORK. Carpenters coming to Wellington from other New Zealand centres, and from even as far afield as Sydney, were said by a Wellington carpenter, Mr. A. Jensen, to be largely responsible for unemployment among tradesmen. Difficulty is being experienced in securing work in tlie building trade, he stated to a representative of the Dominion.

“To my own knowledge between 400 and 500 carpenters are out of work in Wellington,” ho said. “Things have not been so bad in the building trade for years. With the exception of a few private residences here and there and one or two large premises there is little building going on in Wellington and its suburbs. Carpenters are coming here from Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and the other large New Zealand towns. Some are even coming here from Australia,... The building trade in Ait - other New Zealand towns is dead, and they come hero and try and deprive the local tradesmen of work on the few jobs that are going. It seems a strange thing, but the outside men seem to bo getting all the work. ' If a man is an outsider he seems to have a better chance in Wellington.”

“A few weeks ago,” continued Mr. Jensen, “an official of the Wellington Carpenters’ and Joiners’ Union was reported in the Dominion to have stated that there was not .a great ' deal of unemployment in the trade. That is not correct, for I know it 1 ’from my. own experience, and there are dozens and dozens of other carpenters who know it, too. Apparently the official docs not know what unemployment actually docs exist among carpenters, or if he does know he does not want the public to know.”