STATE EMPLOYEES.

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 20188, 13 December 1937, Page 2

STATE EMPLOYEES.

RAPID INCREASE MADE. BUILDING UP STAFFS. FINANCIAL PROVISION MADE. The rapidly-expandmg activities of State are finding their reflection in the thousands of additional employees who have been added to the State pay-roll (says a statement by the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand).

Investigation shows that, for tiltcurrent financial year, financial provision is being made by Parliament for increases in the number of State employees over the year 1935-36 for 17,359 persons.

Of the above total additional employees, 10,000 w r ere added in 1936-37, and another 7000 are being added in 1937-38.

Of course, a number of services In

the above table, such as the Post and Telegraph and others, are self-support-ing; nevertheless, the staff's are all State employees. Justice, law and order and defence must be provided for, but the rate at which the personnel of State departments generally, both old and new, is being built up, and the number of additional people, together with their dependants, who have become directly dependent on the State for their living, is alarming to contemplate.

Tlfe population of New Zealand has increased by 28,431 in the last two years. The 17,350 additional State employees engaged over the same period are equal to 61 per cent, of that increase in population, while, if allowance is made for their dependents, the increase in population would probably be more than absorbed.