DEPRESSION IN BERLIN

Taranaki Daily News, 29 January 1931, Page 9

DEPRESSION IN BERLIN

i . ’ . 7 . • ’ • IDLE OFFICE GIRLS. J J’■ : 1 Thousands of servant girls with the best of “references” were lately looking for situations in Berlin. Only 60 per cent, of the ordinary bookings for halls in hotels and restaurants suitable for festivals on the grand scale beloved by Germans are reported forthis season's gaieties. .Wine is no longer obligatory in first-class pleasure establishments. Well-known brands of household commodities and cleaning materials are advertising reductions which under ordinarv conditions should rejoice the housewife. Shop windows everywhere are filled with large figures crossed through to make way for others still larger, but of less value by twopence or so. All this means that Germany’s economy and general price-reducing campaign has begun. The poetically termed “flight into the household,” which means that hundreds of unemployed girl office workers are trying to obtain posts as. domestic servants, coincides with the period when mistresses who have hitherto kept one maid are doing withouthelp and those with two are reducing this help to one.