GOOD SERVANTS ARE HARD TO GET.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19201, 15 October 1930, Page 10

GOOD SERVANTS ARE HARD TO GET.

A DEMAND EXISTS FOR FFFICIENT WORKERS.

“There are always places for trained girls. Sometimes they may have to wait a few days; but often I have people waiting for good girls.” That was the way in which a lady in close touch with the domestic labour market summarised the position yesterday.

The position was improving, she said, so far as the demand for domestic servants was concerned, but the tendency was for wages to come down. There is no standard rate of wages in domestic service. The law of supply and demand operates as in other avenues of life, and the ability of the girl concerned has a great deal to do with the wages she can command. Girls who know domestic duties thoroughly and are efficient in all departments are worth good money, and there are plenty of employers who are willing to pay.

The supply of domestic labour is always intermittent, and reflects very largely the general labour conditions. During periods when factories are working short time or with reduced

staffs, there is a temporary influx of girls on to the domestic labour market. Such girls, however, are not as a rule looked on favourably by mistresses. Many of them are not efficient, and very few of them regard domestic service as other than a means to tide them over a difficult period. They- have no interest in domestic service, which they find irksome and from wlrch they escape as soon as improved economic

conditions permit them to return t the factory.

It is possible at the present time to obtain good domestic servants, but the number offering is not great. Of the others—the “casual” domestic servant type—there are a good number offering, fhough there has been a reduction in recent weeks.

“The first requirement is for girls to get the necessary experience,” the re- J porter was informed. “It requires i brains to be a good domestic servant. The big trouble is that so many people think that any duffer can be a domestic servant. In addition to ability to, do the work, the girls must possess' good characters. There are classes of parents who do not encourage their daughters to become efficient in domestic duties, and this is an important factor in the inefficiency that exists. I do not know that the training now given in the schools is making any difference. I have never seen that training mentioned in a girl’s references. Of course people simply cannot pay the wages now that they used to pay. Still, girls in domestic service get their keep, and that means the equivalent of another £1 per week. They are certainly better off than. say. waitresses who have to keep themselves.”